Reimagining the Anthropocene: A Critical Inquiry into the Limits of Literary Imagination in Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities are affecting the sustainability of planet Earth. The consequences include global warming, a sudden rise in sea level, environmental pollution, freshwater scarcity, floods, droughts, and cyclones. Literature is often called “a mirror to society,” but no primary literary form has addressed the origins, causes, and diverse impacts of the Anthropocene in the 20th century. Amitav Ghosh, a prominent writer of the 20th century, explains in this non-fictional work titled The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable that even the ‘Fiction’ primary literary form has failed to address the Anthropocene in the 20th century. ‘Cli-fi’, a kind of science fiction, tried to attract the public in the early 21st century. Still, the imagination and destruction shown in these novels could not make people aware of the Anthropocene's impacts. It has failed to represent the reality of the climate crisis because of the imaginary elements in this fiction. Ghosh also doubts fiction's capacity as a serious genre to address issues such as climate change, global warming, and the Anthropocene. Ghosh also discusses the significance of Laudato Si and the Paris Agreement, which address the Anthropocene and climate crisis