The Dance of Death: Ecocatastrophe and Toxicity in the Select Works of Ambikasuthan MangadAbstractA term coined by Laurence Buell in 1998, toxic discourse is a necessary entry point to the debates about the ‘fear of a poisoned world’(Toxic Discourse, 639). The potential exposure to chemicals in our daily lives has been increasing at an exponential rate during the past several years and the outcome of such an indiscriminate exposure looms large before us as many life-threatening diseases and health hazards. The Plantation Corporation of Kerala,( a government-owned body) started the aerial spraying of a lethal pesticide called endosulfan in 1978, and continued it for the next twenty years, over an area of cashew crops covering 15 Grama panchayats in Kasargode. This paper tries to figure out the discourses on human-induced toxicity and the resultant diseases that surfaced as a result of the exposure to endosulfan in the select works of Ambikasuthan Mangad, a contemporary academician, activist and writer in Kerala. It also analyses how this discourse has entered into the mainstream consciousness making the public vigilant on how slow poisoning of the environment may alter and disrupt the delicate balance of nature and enter into human systems causing irrevocable damage. A novel titled Swarga (2017), the English translation of his novel, Enmakaje (2009) and two short story collections: one titled Randu Malsyangal(Two Fishes, 2015) and another titled Ente Priyappetta Kadhakal (My Favourite Stories, 2017) have been taken for study.
Ecocriticism, Ecocatastrophe, Toxic Discourse
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