Wetland Imagery in American Novels
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Social Sciences & Humanities Open 4 (2021) 100158 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Social Sciences & Humanities Open journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssaho Wetland imagery in American novels Erik Kiviat * Hudsonia, P.O. Box 5000, Annandale, New York, 12504, USA ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Wetlands display general ecological characteristics that are reflected in human culture. Nature and culture, in Cultural ecology turn, are reflected in fiction. Wetlands provide many resources to human society as well as presenting significant Grounded theory hazards, and have been both protected and destroyed; fiction might provide insight into the ambivalent human- Literary ecology wetland relationship. I consulted 200 English-language novels containing wetland imagery, and analyzed in detail Fiction 15 American novels. Using grounded theory, I coded 17 broadly-defined themes associated with wetland images United States in each novel. In a total of 1117 themes in 4192 printed pages, the commonest themes (55 instances each) were Transition, Place, Refuge, Beauty, Peace, Product, Mosquito, Discord, Danger, Decay, and Sex. Richness and di- versity of themes were high in most novels analyzed. There were few relationships between general character- istics of the novels (e.g., author age or gender, number of pages, positive or negative ending) and the occurrence of particular themes. On the whole-book level, Discord, Danger, Decay, and Sex were correlated with the most other themes. Theme patterns seem related to human ambivalence towards wetlands (i.e., resources vs. hazards), and the prominence of production and decomposition in wetlands. 1. Introduction resources and hazards that wetlands present to humans (Table 1; Kiviat, 2014). Landscape and environment in general influence human culture Wetlands are landscape features that provide ecosystem services out and behavior. Prince (1997, 2), in discussing the relationship of historic of proportion to the area wetlands occupy (Maltby, 1986; Mitsch & Midwestern U.S. settlement to wetlands, said, ‘Cultural values were born Gosselink, 1993), thus their influence on human culture may be magni- of necessity; they were not adopted by societies and economies as fied relative to other habitats. Many major cities are built on filled wet- optional extras’. lands (Giblett, 2016). The destruction and conservation of wetlands, and Fiction reflects the social environment (Griswold, 1981), and pro- the duality of wetland resources vs. wetland hazards (Kiviat, 2014), are vides ‘cultural self-exploration’ (Zapf, 2016). ‘ … fiction, like all artistic important ecologically and culturally. These features of wetlands appear expression, is rooted in historically and culturally specific contexts. We obviously or subtly in American fiction and their analysis may provide assume it can provide a rich source of information about societies …’ insights into the human-wetland relationship that are useful in envi- (Cohen, 2013). Fiction also reflects nature and the elements of the nat- ronmental management. ural world that are important to people (Holman, 1972, 342), albeit Ecocriticism analyzes relationships between literature and nature, through the different lens of each author (Henighan, 1982,15et seq.). and often strives to understand social-ecological systems through a lit- And, ‘A place might inspire fiction, but fiction in turn can shade your erary lens. Much ecocriticism focuses on a single work, an author, a experience of that place’ (Atkins, 2018). The painter Alan Gussow said genre, a country, or occasionally a group of organisms (e.g., birds or landscape artists have a relationship to place because everyone lives cetaceans). Addressing a type of environment or habitat across many somewhere (Gussow & Maxon-Edgerton, 1996). Each author of a novel writings is rare. In this paper I ask how wetlands appear in a sample of lives, works, and plays somewhere in landscapes; the important and U.S. fictional works, and how this wetland imagery is related to human complex relationship of writing to place was elaborated by Buell (2001, concerns and wetland ecosystem function. Chapter 2). Hence landscapes, with their wetlands, should have identi- Wetland ecosystems display a set of ecological characteristics or fiable emblems, images, or ‘themes’ in fiction. In this paper I categorise tendencies, although all are not found in each wetland type or individual those themes (actions or affects), and relate them to wetland ecology. wetland unit (Maltby, 1986). These characteristics correspond to the Neither human culture nor fiction is exact in its relationship to nature, * Corresponding author: E-mail address: kiviat@bard.edu. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100158 Received 16 November 2020; Received in revised form 22 March 2021; Accepted 14 April 2021 Available online xxxx 2590-2911/© 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/). E. Kiviat Social Sciences & Humanities Open 4 (2021) 100158 Table 1 2. Methods General ecological characteristics of wetlands, and corresponding resources and hazards for human culture (from Kiviat, 2014). As a field biologist analyzing a system with a large number of diverse Ecological characteristic Resources or benefits Hazards or challenges images, I have chosen to explore the imagery quantitatively with tech- niques often used in my subject area. This is strictly an exploratory study Water levels near ground Water supply; Access for Flooding; Difficulty of surface shallow draft boats boat access for the purpose of creating hypotheses rather than for extrapolation to a Soft substrates Protection from Travel difficulties; larger population, thus a random sample was not required (Etikan et al., intruders Miring of humans, 2016). I found novels with wetland imagery opportunistically, by livestock, equipment browsing public and private libraries and stores, scanning reviews, Fertile soils Cultivable soils; Competition for soil Wild plant resources resources? searching digital resources, and asking other readers. If a novel was set in Semi-aquatic mammals with Furs, meat Reservoirs of human a geographic region with much wetland, or had an allusion to water or water-resistant fur (e.g., pathogens & parasites wetland in the title or the cover illustration, I particularly scanned the muskrat, beaver, mink) text for wetland imagery (identified by the indicators in Table 2), and I High productivity of Food; Fodder & grazing; Boat & foot travel also looked at many novels not obviously suggestive of wetlands. I vascular vegetation that is Construction & craft difficulties; Hazard to commonly dense, tough, materials; Protection skin, eyes; Poor visibility selected novels irrespective of length, genre, author or book reputation, harsh, slow-decomposing from intruders through vegetation audience (e.g., age, gender), and writing style (literary or commercial). Sheltered creeks & pools Sheltered travel routes; Getting lost in maze of Grounded theory is a method of analysing texts that includes Recreation; Refuge from waterways; Navigating storms & enemies trackless swamps High spatiotemporal Variable microhabitats Unpredictable resources Table 2 & heterogeneity due to for biota promote plant hazards Indicators of wetland in fiction. (Based in part on Mitsch and Gosselink [1993], interaction of & animal diversity, as well as my extensive field experience.) sedimentation, allow harvest by microtopography, water exploiting distributions Indicator Explanation Examples fluctuation, plants in space & time category Storm surges & salinity Concentrate or kill Hazards to shelter, Wetland type Term for a wetland or type Marsh, saltmarsh, swamp, intrusions certain resource species cultivation, wild of wetland mangrove, bayou, bog, fen, resources peatland, morass, mire, quagmire, Local abundance of Discourages intruders Fly-vectored diseases slough, wet meadow mosquitoes & other biting (malaria, etc.); Nuisance Agricultural Identified by crop, water Cranberry bog, rice paddy flies to people & domestic wetland level, etc. animals Wetland Wetland game, fish, furs, For sale or subsistence: Cattails, Concentrations of fish, birds, Food; Recreation Nuisance or dangerous products useful plants, sphagnum, or fish, game, alligators, furbearer other animals species (predatory, other organisms or pelts, scientific specimens, pets venomous, disease- materials consumed or sold transmitting) Wetland plant Name of obligate wetland Cattail, reed, bulrush, tule, rush, High humidity, ground fogs, Refuge from outsiders Post-harvest food losses?; taxon species, or facultative bald cypress, buttonbush, sedge, storm winds Travel dangers wetland species where salt cedar, saltbush Ice Cut for refrigeration; Interferes with boat wetland confirmed by May improve access on travel; Forces fauna out context (see Lichvar et al., foot of human reach; 2012; USDA 2018) Damages structures; Ice Mosquito Wetland-associated Mosquitoes, biting midges jams in spring cause mosquitoes or other biting (Ceratopogonidae), deer flies and flooding, physical flies horse flies (Tabanidae) damage Wetland Animal taxon found almost Obligate: limpkin, rails, marsh animal exclusively in wetland wren. Facultative: northern habitat; for facultative leopard frog, northern water wetland animal, wetland snake, American alligator, and nature is not the only influence on culture and fiction (Henighan, confirmed by context common snapping turtle, 1982). Wetlands, according to Prince (1997,