Ecological Crisis, Human Miseries, and Environmental Ethics in Sitaram Adhikari's "Drought"

Abstract

Introduction: Environmental crisis depicted in literature becomes an important tool to understand ecological crisis, human vulnerability, and human-nature connection. In Sitaram Adhikari’s poem “Drought,” there is a depiction of a severe drought situation where agriculture, plant, bird, food availability, and human joy are at stake.

Objective: The main objective of the present research is to analyze the portrayal of ecological crisis, human miseries, and environmental ethics in Sitaram Adhikari’s “Drought.”

Methods: This is a qualitative literary study employing textual interpretation and ecocritical method to study the representation of drought, nature-human interaction, environmental suffering, environmental ethics, and food security in the poem. Recent theoretical research on ecopoetics, climate literature, environmental humanities, and ecocriticism forms the basis of the study.

Results: It is shown that drought works in the poem as an ecological and social catastrophe. Images such as damaged seedbeds, destroyed settlements, bare farmlands, scared birds, emptied storage of grain, and tears of men form a web of connected ecological and social sufferings in the poem. The poem also anthropomorphizes environmental powers and makes the non-human living being emotionally present in the poem which rejects human-centric view of environmental crisis.

Conclusion: "Drought" portrays environmental destruction as a crisis common to humans, animals, plants, agriculture, and prosperity.

Novelty: The paper gives an ecocritical interpretation of Adhikari’s poem by associating it with contemporary environmental humanities, ecological ethics, and climate-change studies.