A Postcolonial Ecocritical Study of Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace

Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate the environmental and ecological issues in South Asia caused by the British colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries particularly from a postcolonial ecocritical perspective using Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace (2000). It attempts to shed light on the catastrophic extensive exploitation of the Burmese, Malay, and Indian natural resources including teak, rubber, oil as well as the human workforce by the British in the Indian subcontinent during the last two centuries. This dissertation also examines the situation of the subaltern embodied in local workers, immigrants, women, orphans, and servants who have been equally victimized just like nature itself. It explicates their ironical position of being the hands that destroy and harm their mother land during the British occupation. Moreover, it explores the relationship and attitudes of the colonized characters towards nature and the environment as well as those of the colonizers spotlighting environmental racism exercised against the subalterns. Furthermore, the study traces human cruelty, abuse, and exploitation of animals that eventually lead to the extinction of many species creating the imbalance in the ecosystem.