An ecocritical reading of Nadine Gordimer's fiction

Abstract EN

Ecocritics seek to trace environmental crises, ideas and representations, shedding light on the interaction between man and society on the one hand, and man and physical environment on the other.

The aim of this paper is to underline Gordimer's treatment of humanity's interaction with the nonhuman, to show the relationships between her narratives and the environment, to explain how the environment is represented in her fiction, to highlight how the ecological intersects with the political, social and cultural, and to articulate how far characters are able to interact and establish healthy relationships with their society and environment.

Nadine Gordimer, who grew up in a dreary environment, presents a model of the interaction between culture and nature.

Despite her being one of the privileged whites, she fights against the apartheid system, which drains nature, pollutes environment, and dehumanizes the blacks.

Throughout her career, there has been an interaction between the private character and the public landscape, with the landscapes conveying "a changing picture of South African veld and the ancient roots of African culture." While Gordimer's characters, in her early novels, cannot develop a connection between their private lives and the surrounding environment, they develop , in her later ones ,an interaction with the public landscape.

Gordimer presents post-apartheid South Africa as still vulnerable and plagued as before.

Gordimer's modern narratives articulate a delicate and sensitive interaction with the social and physical environments, with the ecological always intersecting with the political, cultural and social.

Her fiction shows that ecological concerns are part of both the human and the nonhuman.

Gordimer's latest narratives stress the importance of preserving and saving the environment, calling for a less threatened ecological order.