Toxic consciousness in Ann Pancake’s novel “Strange as this Weather Has Been”

Abstract EN

This research paper provides an eco-analysis on Ann Pancake’s novel “Strange as this Weather Has Been” in order to study the way in which the toxic landscape functions in the selected novel as a metaphor for the pollution of the natural world, and tries to show how that pollution certainly transmogrifies one's experience of the earth itself.

It also considers a transform from a culture defined by its production to a culture defined by its waste.

The American novelists raise their attention to the universal issue of toxic waste, a concern that is reflected in what it proposes to be “toxic consciousness” in the American literary works.

The selected novel shows various representations of a culture’s shifting from a culture defined by its production and keeping the environment safe to a culture defined by its waste and destruction.

It also portrays how nature has been changed from spiritual healer to economic resources and how nature changes from standing reserve into already used up.

Ann Pancake is an American novelist who mainly describes the people and environment of Appalachia.

In her famous novel, “Strange as this Weather Has Been”, Pancake shows the impact of pollution on the nature.

Pancake’s main characters are threatened into one of the most dangerous regions of the country, where mining has destroyed the landscape and ecosystem.

It is interesting to see how Ann Pancake encodes her ecological thoughts in her writing.