Eco-Literature and the Creation of Empathy in Canadian Fiction Diplomarbeit

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Eco-Literature and the Creation of Empathy in Canadian Fiction

Diplomarbeit

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

einer Magistra der Philosophie

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von

Magdalena Hannah PAUER

am Institut für Anglistik

Begutachterin: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. phil. Maria Löschnigg

Graz, 2020

“The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.”

(C. William Beebe, The Bird: Its Form and Function, 1906)

Acknowledgements

I would like to express deep gratitude to Prof. Dr. Maria Löschnigg for her encouragement and guidance during the development of this thesis. Thank you for all your advice and enthusiasm throughout the writing process.

My closest family, Katharina and Martin and my sisters Theresa, Julia, Maria and Sophia, have supported me with helpful tips and positive energy throughout my studies. Thanks to them, all obstacles seem small and easily manageable. I am most grateful to my parents for their endless love and support.

I particularly thank my best friends Elisabeth, Jennifer, Anna, Andrea and Johanna, who I have not only shared thousands of coffee-dates, wonderful memories, and the most precious time with, but who have also made these past years at university an unforgettable adventure.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Daniel, my favourite person in the world, for his support, his boundless optimism and high spirits. He has taught me that simple distractions, such as a volleyball match on a sunny afternoon, are the key to a person’s happiness. I am looking forward to all our future adventures together.

Table of Content 1 Introduction ...... 1

2 Eco-Literature ...... 2

2.1 Underestimating Climate Change ...... 3

2.2 The Impact of Eco-Literature ...... 6

2.3 Subgenres of Eco-Literature ...... 8

2.3.1 Eco-Fiction ...... 10

3 Ecocriticism ...... 13

3.1 General Introduction to Ecocriticism ...... 13

3.2 The Cultural Relevance of Ecocriticism ...... 15

3.3 The History of Ecocriticism ...... 17

3.4 Possible Solutions and Futuristic Outlook ...... 20

4 Affective Ecologies and the Creation of Empathy ...... 21

4.1 Animals and Empathy ...... 25

5 Native Ecologies ...... 27

6 Primary Canadian Eco-Fiction ...... 30

6.1 Introduction to the Selected Texts ...... 30

6.2 Synopses of the Primary Literature ...... 31

6.2.1 The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy ...... 32

6.2.2 The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King ...... 32

6.2.3 Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill ...... 33

6.2.4 The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek by Sid Marty ...... 33

6.2.5 Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth ...... 34

6.2.6 Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood ...... 35

6.2.7 “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow” by Earnest T. Seton ...... 35

6.2.8 “Do Seek Their Meat from God” by Charles G. D. Roberts ...... 36

iii

6.2.9 “Blessing Song” by Lee Maracle ...... 36

6.2.10 “Cedar Sings” by Lee Maracle ...... 36

6.2.11 “An Athabasca Story” by Warren Cariou ...... 37

6.2.12 “The Tent” by Margaret Atwood ...... 37

6.2.13 “Goodbye Snauq” by Lee Maracle ...... 37

6.3 Methods to Create Empathy in Eco-Literature ...... 38

7 Animals ...... 38

7.1 Use of Paratext ...... 40

7.2 Visual Elements ...... 43

7.3 Anthropomorphism and Anti-Anthropomorphism ...... 49

7.3.1 Anthropomorphism ...... 49

7.3.2 Anti-Anthropomorphism ...... 56

7.4 Narrative Perspectives ...... 58

7.4.1 First-person Narration ...... 59

7.4.2 Third-person Narration ...... 62

7.5 Native Attachment ...... 64

7.6 Death of Animals ...... 65

7.7 Criticism of Human Behaviour ...... 66

8 Pollution and Environmental Degradation ...... 68

8.1 Dystopian Settings ...... 68

8.2 Reminders of the Past ...... 72

8.3 The Native Representation of Environmental Degradation ...... 76

8.4 Stylistic and Rhetorical Devices ...... 81

8.5 Irony ...... 84

8.6 Imagery to Describe Nature ...... 87

8.7 Giving Voice to Nature ...... 90

9 Conclusion ...... 91

10 Bibliography ...... 94

10.1 Primary Sources ...... 94

10.2 Secondary Sources ...... 95

11 Webliography ...... 101

12 Register of Illustrations ...... 102

13 Appendix ...... 104

13.1 Illustrations ...... 104

13.1.1 The White Bone ...... 104

1 Introduction

People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy-tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?

(Greta Thunberg 2019: min 0:40)

Today, environmental disasters happen in greater numbers than ever and natural surroundings have never faced more human-caused destruction. We find ourselves between an American president who publicly denies the existence of climate change and a Swedish teenager, who has launched a mass movement to save the environment. Greta Thunberg has inspired millions of students, teachers and activists globally to join the protection of the planet, becoming one of the most influential climate activists of our times. Due to our planet’s critical state and issues such as global warming and environmental disasters, activism is urgently needed and Greta’s fight for a better future for today’s youth and the generations to come is based on the same beliefs and values as the ones found in eco-literature. Art has a unique and powerful potential for creating and spreading environmental awareness. According to Maria Löschnigg, literature, in particular, plays a powerful role as it “offers alternative ways of relating to the impending environmental crisis, which cannot be performed by non-literary, pragmatic, scientific discourses, and which are also, in a number of ways, set off from the affordances of other art forms” (2020b: 47). Within the past decades, eco-literature has evolved, focussing on the natural surroundings and environmental issues. The genre helps people to grasp the urgency and the seriousness of the global crisis. It is based on ecocriticism, an earth-centred approach that increases the reader’s empathy for the environment. The aim of eco-literature is to make the problems tangible by triggering an emotional response, so that the readership feels troubled and worried about nature. In the best case, this feeling of unease leads to activism so that people join the fight for the protection of planet Earth. It is high time that humankind realized the damage they have caused and took action to reduce their contribution to anthropogenic climate change. It seems to be human nature to always find excuses when it comes to accepting that the present exploitative lifestyle is suicidal and that time is running out. There is only one planet Earth and if we refuse to act now, it might be too late for many animal species, ecosystems and, eventually, for the human species itself. Therefore, the power of eco-literature is needed. It makes us understand what life feels like when clean water is scarce and when the planet has

1 become a dangerous, life-threatening place. While reading environmental fiction a certain shift happens: the reader escapes the present and dives into an alternative world where imaginative characters face all kinds of problems. The borders start to blur. As the readers identify with the characters, they share the protagonists’ experiences, feelings, hopes and dreams. In literature, empathy can also be felt for animals, the environment and for plants, which is essential to bring about change. The aim of this thesis is therefore to discuss the techniques that are used by writers of eco-fiction in order to trigger the reader’s empathy for the environment and to make people care. To be able to investigate a broad range of literary techniques and devices and, at the same time, look at these phenomena within the confounds of one specific literary canon, thirteen Canadian novels and short stories have been selected for this ecocritical analysis.

Regarding the structure of this thesis, an introduction to eco-literature, its impact and the concept of ecocriticism will be provided. Additionally, the importance of affective ecologies and the creation of empathy will be explained. Furthermore, the interconnectedness of Indigenous people and the environment will be addressed as the Native Canadian populations have always had a more sustainable connection to their natural surroundings. The theoretical part of this thesis will be concluded with an introduction to the primary literature. Readers will be offered short summaries of the selected works of Canadian eco-fiction to better understand the analysis in the second part of this thesis. The analytical part will be divided into two larger chapters with the aim to identify empathy-creating literary techniques in the thirteen selected texts of Canadian eco-fiction. The first main chapter deals with the affective depiction of animals; it discusses how empathy is triggered, among others, through anthropomorphism, the use of paratexts, visual elements and narrative perspective. The second analytical chapter focuses on affective ecologies regarding pollution and environmental degradation. Subchapters in this category will centre, for instance, on rhetorical and stylistic devices, dystopian settings, reminders of the past and imagery. In the conclusion the findings will be summarized.

2 Eco-Literature

One of the most efficient methods to make the serious topic of global warming and of environmental concerns, in general, more tangible is through eco-literature. Literature, in general, is quite powerful. It “allows for representations whose relevance transcends the referential here and now, reaching both into the past and into the future” (Löschnigg 2020b: 2

18). Furthermore, literature can plant all kinds of thoughts and desires into the readers’ brains and influence them without their knowledge. When being confronted with eco-literature, readers often unconsciously learn about the climate crisis and the degradation of their environment. They are automatically cued to appreciate untouched nature, to empathise with animals, and to feel a strong wish to protect the planet from destruction. Referring to the power of eco-literature, Maria Löschnigg quotes Theresa J. May’s pointed metaphor, that literature, especially stories, “are ecological forces as potentially powerful as hurricanes” (ibid.).

Eco-literature will be defined more precisely in chapters 2.2 and 2.3 of this thesis, but for now, its power should be emphasized. Maria Löschnigg puts this as follows:

[E]co-literature is powerful not necessarily because it is best-selling, but rather because it offers alternative ways of seeing, and because it provides a ‘tool-kit’ for developing regenerative cultural practices and for solving problems, thus creating a source pool of possibilities, no matter if or when or how they are ‘used’. The more different ‘tools’ it contains and the more well known the different strategies to use these ‘tools’ are, the higher the chances that some of these textual imaginative knowledge systems will be taken up by some readers, at some time and place, and thus be further disseminated – if only in a fragmentary, indirect and unwitting manner. It will still make a difference. (Löschnigg 2020b: 26)

The aim of eco-literature is to spread environmental concern among readers. A particularly strong force that emanates from eco-literature is its capacity to create empathy, to make us care. How and through which techniques this is achieved will be shown later in this thesis on the example of selected Canadian texts. An aspect that holds a particularly prominent position within the genre of eco-literature is climate change.

2.1 Underestimating Climate Change

Even though we know theoretically what the terms ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’ and its consequences mean, only few people understand the seriousness of this issue. This could be due to the fact that global warming is an overwhelming topic, or may result from people’s laziness that makes them choose the more comfortable way; in other words, people often act as if it did not concern them despite their cognitive knowledge of the problem. This is rather ironic, considering the fact that climate change and its natural consequences, such as raging storms or other disasters, are ‘human-made’, or, as Zumbansen and Fromme put it, “[t]he reasons for

3 natural disasters range from man’s failure in terms of environmental protection to civilization’s inability to create an ecological equilibrium” (2010: 273).

Another possibility, as Clive Hamilton argues in Requiem for a Species, is that our lives are too short, so we will not experience the full consequences of climate change and we will not see them with our own eyes (cf. 2010: 120). As the most disastrous effects and the worst consequences of global warming will be visible in the future – some scholars believe that this will happen fifty years from now (cf. Trexler 2014: 205) – people do not really grasp what climate change actually means. Alexa Weik von Mossner, a scholar at the University of Klagenfurt, explains: “When we try to envision climate change, most of us rather swiftly reach the limits of our imaginary abilities” (2017: 139), and she continues, “it is a phenomenon that is too abstract and too vast in its spatial and temporal dimensions” (ibid.). This statement was proven in a study conducted by a group of psychologists. In 2015, Sander van der Linden and his team claimed the following: “Mounting evidence from across the behavioral sciences has found that most people [in this study the participants were Americans] regard climate change as a non-urgent and psychologically distant risk – spatially, temporally, and socially” (van der Linden, Maibach and Leiserowitz 2015: 758). Therefore, as people do not feel affected by and concerned about the climate crisis, the scholars suggest that it should always be presented as a “present, local, and personal risk” (ibid.).

Due to the fact that “global warming is infinitesimally slow as a general phenomenon” (Goodbody 2020: 138), Axel Goodbody lists the meaningful rendering of space and time as one of the ‘key problems’ when writing about climate change. Therefore, various strategies are used in literature that focuses on climate change: “framing mechanisms, different time settings in parallel narratives, telepathic links between different generations and other multi-temporal structures to bridge the gap and make the impact of global warming real” (ibid.). Additional challenges include sticking to scientific truth, how to communicate scientific data, and the misleading impression that the issue of climate change is solved, when the protagonist’s personal conflicts are successfully tackled (cf. Goodbody 2020: 137-139).

Another reason why many people deny the existence of global warming or simply refuse to act is the fact that “there are no clear villains” (Trexler 2014: 205); billions of people drive and fly around the globe, turn on heating and air conditioning, burn fossil fuels which ought to remain in the ground, buy chemically manipulated food, or contribute in some other way to the

4 destruction of our planet. In short, whether we like it or not, we are all obvious culprits. The problem is that the majority of the population is too self-centred to give up their modern, comfortable and ‘easy’ lifestyles.

Despite numerous stern and grim warnings, such as, “global warming is […] no longer a future threat, no longer a threat at all. It is our reality” (McKibben 2010: xiii), people still fail to grasp the urgency of the topic. Scholar Adam Trexler believes that “[g]lobal climate change is likely to be our time’s lasting legacy on Earth” (2015: 1). Even though we can only predict the future, it is highly likely that temperatures will continue to rise globally, which would trigger a series of catastrophes:

Droughts, tropical cyclones, heat waves, crop failures, forest diebacks and fires, floods, and erosion will become more extreme. Inadequate water supplies, malnutrition, diarrheal diseases, and infectious diseases will become more common. Flooding, drought and water shortages will lead to mass migration and regional conflicts. Low-lying costal areas, including island countries, will face risks from rising sea levels and more intense coastal storms. (Trexler 2015: 2)

Furthermore, desertification, precipitation, ocean acidification, the melting of permafrost and glaciers, unusual weather patterns and losses of biodiversity are mentioned (ibid.). Despite the global diffusion and widespread knowledge of scientific data, there remains the difficult question of how to make people understand. “Recognizing global warming requires much more than assenting to scientific data. […] How can a global process, spanning millennia, be made comprehensible to human imagination, with its limited sense of place and time?” (Trexler 2015: 5).

The imaginative concretization and dramatization of climate change bring the issue closer to the common people. Therefore, climatic concern “has found expression in high and popular culture, extending across novels and films, poetry and theatre, art, comics and computer games” (Goodbody 2020: 132). Especially literature and films are highly effective means, as they make “experiences, attitudes and actions real” (Goodbody 2020: 134). This is achieved by featuring “threats to people’s centres of felt value” (ibid.):

They [literature and film] make it [climate change] tangible by rendering it local and immediate, thereby compressing its imperceptibly broad and gradual progression into meaningful units of space and time, and by associating ideas, attitudes and patterns of behaviour with authentic characters, tracing their inner development, and exploring conflicts of interest in fictional experiments. (ibid.)

However, a prime focus is on literature, as it “fulfils functions which are not replaceable by other artistic forms of relating to the world in general, and to environmental issues in particular” (Löschnigg 2020b: 24).

At this point, the function of literature and especially eco-literature must be mentioned, as it disposes of aesthetic tools and methods which can make us care. One function is the (re)connection with the ‘more-than-human’, which, according to Maria Löschnigg, “are prerequisites for an ecologically orientated cohabitation of humankind, and for other animate and inanimate lifeforms” (2020b: 20). She further concludes that this can be achieved through various methods, such as, for instance, “metaphoric language, the innovative juxtaposition of hitherto separated entities, [and] the imagination of unusual perspectives, including those of the non-human” (ibid.). Such methods and techniques will be analysed more closely in the second part of the thesis, when a selected body of Canadian eco-fiction will be discussed.

The function of eco-literature is of great importance as it is directly connected with the state of the earth:

As cultural discourses affect the way we relate to our environment and to our position within this larger organism that is our planet, the function of literature as ‘ecological’ needs not only to be seen metaphorically or analogically but also in connection with its direct or indirect effect on the well-being of planet Earth. (Löschnigg 2020b: 20)

2.2 The Impact of Eco-Literature

Eco-literature can change readers’ minds by using concepts that help readers grasp the seriousness of the planet’s state not only cognitively but also emotionally. As we “haven’t been able to get our minds around catastrophic climate change” (Delaney 2017: online), we need novels to bring climate change to the common reader. “When the novel incorporates things implicated in climate change – climate models, glaciers, […] future hopes, weather – it becomes impossible to read without the preoccupation of climate change” (Trexler 2015: 15). Another advantage of novels is that they can break the serious topic down into portions, as quoted by Greg Garrard; “People naturally need some sort of entrée, some way in, some angle that reduces the brain-frying complexity and ambiguity to manageable portions” (2016: 298). This is exactly what eco-literature does.

But what exactly is meant by ‘eco-literature’? It is a literary genre which consists of explicitly environmental texts, which foreground ecological concerns and mankind’s relationship with nature. Eco-literature provides us with novels and texts that we need in order to take action, even though they do not have to be explicitly activist or didactic. Step by step environmental concern is implanted into the people’s thoughts and actions, and knowledge of environmental issues reaches a broader audience. The main aim is to engage readers emotionally so that, in the best-case scenario, readers feel so worried that they are scared into action. According to Weik von Mossner, “it has been argued by psychologists and philosophers alike that emotionally engaging literature can have moral effects on readers that go beyond the immediate reading experience” (2017: 80). Eco-literature lives from a lasting effect on its audience. After having finished a story, readers are hopefully inwardly upset, pondering on the characters’ lives and the events that have occurred. If this is not happening, eco-literature has failed its purpose, as an unsuccessful text, one that is quickly forgotten, will never lead to change.

The cultural importance of narratives has often been emphasized. In a recent article in The Guardian Delaney points out that “[f]acts matter, but stories can persuade us to change our world” (2017: online). People tend to understand situations only when they see, hear or experience them themselves. Therefore, we need eco-literary texts, such as eco-fiction, so that for instance, the characters in the novels show us what life feels like when there is no more clean air to breathe, when all animals are killed, and when there is no clean water to drink. According to Trexler, the protagonists’ confrontation with a climatic disaster “allows readers to have a personal experience of climate change, glimpsing its effects on local places and individual lives” (2015: 24). By reading about the characters’ threats and sorrows, we start to share their pain, we start to develop empathy and to identify with them, or as Alexa Weik von Mossner puts it: “By empathizing with the situations of people, we can approximate some of their feelings and concerns, even if these people are very different from ourselves” (2017: 82f).

Donald Worster, an environmental historian, emphasizes the role of authors who reflect on environmental issues in their eco-literary work. In order to fight the global crisis, people need to understand the impact humans have on the environment; this can be achieved by authors and literary scholars whose works help people understand the severity of the global catastrophe (cf. Worster 1993: 27). Their indefatigable, creative depiction of polluted landscapes, exploited nature and the destruction of the planet is a great way to raise awareness of the global catastrophes and allows readers to understand the environmental crisis. Delaney emphasizes the

7 important role of authors as well and perceives their stories as warnings: “The best novelists will rise to the challenge of our age. They must. We need the consequences described to us through the lives of characters. Characters who are just like us – our fictional doppelgangers, who are here to warn us what lies in wait” (2017: online).

Eco-narratives are so powerful due to the transmission of environmental thought that is wrapped up in stories in an indirect, subtle way. These stories ‘stick’, shape cultural attitudes and evoke images “in aesthetic forms that arouse interest and that entertain and are memorable while – directly or indirectly – still affecting the senses and the mind and revealing hitherto unnoticed connections and causalities” (Löschnigg 2020b: 22). Environmental narratives will probably not change our habits or start a mass movement all of a sudden, but together with additional discourses they will hopefully lead to change and recovery. Maria Löschnigg puts this as follows:

[Environmental literary discourses] will not, in most cases, lead to ecological protest on a large scale; neither will they (even though they may) immediately stop people from using their cars or big farms from using pesticides – at least not in the near future. Rather, literature, in symbiosis with other critical discourses such as scientific reports, documentary films, protest letters and so on, will help prepare a mental climate that will be (or could be) – as it has been before – the creative basis for transformation and regeneration. (Löschnigg 2020b: 26f).

2.3 Subgenres of Eco-Literature

The genre of eco-literature is based on the concept of ecocriticism, which will be explained more closely in chapter 3 of this thesis.

Regarding the emergence of eco-literature, Cheryl Glotfelty noted in the 1990s that for a long time “the most pressing contemporary issue of all, namely, the global environmental crisis” (1996: xv) had been ignored by scholars, authors and researchers. Glotfelty, an American Professor of environmental literature, strongly criticises the fact that there were no major literary publications regarding environmental concerns in the late twentieth century, despite the increasing appearance of numerous newspaper reports at that time, informing readers of “oil spills, lead and asbestos poisoning, toxic waste contamination, extinction of species at an unprecedented rate, […] nuclear waste dumps, a growing hole in the ozone layer, predictions

8 of global warming, acid rain, loss of topsoil, destruction of the tropical rain forest” (1996: xvi), for example.

Today, eco-literature and its subgenres gain popularity all over the world, as pointed out in an essay published in World Literature Today in 2017 (cf. Sullivan 2017: online). Not only authors from the English-speaking world but also, for example, more and more German authors publish works in different narrative forms, focussing on environmental change and catastrophe. However, the challenge of how to depict the environmental catastrophe so that the common reader grasps the seriousness of the environmental crises and global warming remains, revolving around the question: “How can we write about changes too big to see even if the local impact is overt; how can we grapple with an inhuman scale; and how can we bring light to the obvious drama right in front of us” (ibid.). Even though difficulties might emerge for authors when dealing with such a controversial and overwhelming topic, authors have now started to produce such texts, using various forms and genres. Today, eco-literature can be divided into many different subgenres.

One subgenre, for example, is eco-poetry through which strong, metaphorically charged environmental messages are conveyed. Two important Canadian eco-poets are, for instance, Di Brandt and Erin Mouré, whose powerful poems have reached international audiences.

Further examples of subgenres of eco-literature are ecotopia, eco-fiction1, eco-nonfiction, ‘ecocritical essays’, ‘eco-friendly articles’, eco-drama, statistics of scientific modelling, and children’s literature with a focus on environmental consciousness, which aims at motivating our future generation to support the fight against environmental degradation. Depending on different sources, various other subgenres of eco-literature can be found. According to Weik von Mossner, environmental narrative “includes any type of narrative in any media that foregrounds ecological issues and human-nature relationships, often but not always with the openly stated intention of bringing about social change” (2017: 3).

Evi Zemanek’s Ökologische Genres (2018), which has been referred to as “the first landmark publication on the issue of ecological genres” (Löschnigg 2020b: 27), offers a large body of literary works and genres with an environmental focus. In addition to the more common ecological genres, such as eco-topia and eco-thriller, Zemanek also includes subgenres such as

1 This genre will be discussed in the following subchapter. 9

‘Slave narrative’ and ‘diary’. According to her, not all genres obtain the same effect: while, for instance, some ecological genres aim at scaring the readers, others rather encourage the audience to reflect on possible solutions to various problems, or at shedding light on the ‘status quo’ of the global crisis (cf. Zemanek 2018: 24). Additionally, different genres address different age groups and different target audiences. In this context, different modes of writing are mentioned, such as for example satirical, comical, and narrative writing (cf. ibid.).

Additionally, it should be mentioned that environmental concerns are not only restricted to literature but have reached other arts as well. Thus Greg Garrard, refers to environmental comedy or environmental humor (cf. 2014: 3), Suzaan Boettger discusses environmentalism in visual art (cf. 2016: 664-681), and Maria Löschnigg mentions the emergence of the new genres ‘solarpunk’ and ‘ecopunk’ (cf. 2020b: 21). Another example is the so-called ‘ecomusicology’ or ‘ecocritical musicology’, which is understood as an environmental art that focuses on the relationship between sound or music and the natural environment (cf. Allen 2016: 644).

Finally, a genre that has been well-received by the public is called ‘ecocinema’ or ‘eco-film’. We just have to remember James Cameron’s highly successful Avatar, a film that has filled the masses around the globe with enthusiasm and has become a significant contribution to the genre ‘ecocinema’ due to its graphic depiction of the anthropogenic degradation of flora and fauna and the human exploitation of the Earth’s resources (cf. MacDonald 2016: 621, 624f). Another influential film of this genre is Erin Brockovich, which was released in 2000 and dramatizes the environmental scandal caused by the American “Pacific Gas and Electric Company”.

2.3.1 Eco-Fiction

In this subchapter, eco-fiction will be shortly discussed, as the texts explored in this thesis belongs to this literary genre.

In the last decades, eco-fiction has quickly become a very successful genre. Even though some writers criticized the shortage of works, Adam Trexler, in 2014, praised the publication of “over two hundred works of fiction about anthropogenic global warming [within the past 30 years]” (2014: 205).

With regard to environmental issues, one advantage of a fictional text over ‘nonfiction’ is that the readers are allowed to slowly dive into the characters’ worlds and lives without the constant, explicit listing of facts that serve as reminders of what will happen if the readers refuse to act. The focus of eco-fiction is rather on the protagonists and on certain events in the story that allow readers to empathize with the presented world and the characters:

Creating a connection between the reader and characters immersed in disastrous global warming, readers could immediately experience climate change as a threat to their centres of felt value. Thus, fiction would reposition climate change as a fundamental concern for the wider public. (Trexler 2015: 76)

The aim of eco-fiction is to reach a broad audience and to highlight the fact that global warming and the destruction of our planet are indeed the biggest threats to future generations. This means that eco-fiction is used to bring the risks closer to the readers. This view is supported by Adam Trexler, when he notes: “Fictionalizing climate change is not about falsifying it, or making it imaginary, but rather about using narrative to heighten its reality” (2015: 75). By claiming that “fiction is said to express truths that cannot be described by direct, declarative writing” (Trexler 2015: 29), he, additionally, hints at the genre’s great advantage to allow readers a glimpse of what it feels like to live in a world affected by environmental disasters. It helps the audience to envision the full consequences of climate change, as the protagonists actually experience them already. There is no room for ‘what ifs’ because for the characters, the consequences of global warming are reality. Fictionality also allows for depicting emotions, thoughts and feelings of human and non-human creatures and thus offers a strategy which is impossible in non-fictional texts.

As the planet’s temperature rises, authors envision life in the future, as their “novels [often] examine what it means to live after climate change can no longer be deferred” (Trexler 2015: 203). Excellent examples are Margaret Atwood’s Orxy and Crake, which will be discussed later, and The Carbon Diaries 2015, a novel by British author Saci Lloyd. As it was published in 2009, it describes life in the ‘near future’, in 2015, when the British government passes a law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by sixty percent. The lives of all individuals change completely, as people are fined if their greenhouse gas emissions are too high, which can be controlled by the people’s individual carbon cards. The following quotation describes the protagonist’s new life and rules:

The car’s gonna be cut way back, all of us get access to the PC, TV, HD, stereo for only 2 hours a day, heating is down to 16°C in the living room and 1 hour a day for the rest of the

house, showers max 5 minutes, baths only at weekend. We’ve got to choose – hairdryer, toaster, microwave, smartphone, de-ioniser (Mum), kettle, lights, PDA, e-pod, fridge or freezer and on and on. Flights are a real no-no and shopping, travelling and going out not much better. It’s all kind of a choice. (Lloyd 2009: 6)

Sylvia Mayer, director of the Bayreuth Institute for American Studies, emphasizes that many novels about climate change can be categorized as “risk narratives of catastrophe [that] concentrate on creating a future fictional world when the risk has turned into catastrophe; when what used to be a climate change risk scenario has eventually materialized in global climate collapse” (2016: 506). Mayer states that the characters in such narratives deal with “dramatic experiences of displacement, toxic pollution, and species extinction and […] attempt to create new kinds of civilization”2 (ibid.). Of course, characters are also confronted with additional problems than the ones mentioned. Regarding these so-called risk narratives, again, we are reminded of the advantage of fiction, as “climate change fiction is, in general, much more easily accessible than factual texts and reaches a much larger audience” (ibid.).

One genre that could be viewed as a subgenre of eco-fiction is ‘speculative fiction’, a term coined by Margaret Atwood. One representative is her novel Oryx and Crake, and Atwood herself defines this genre by speaking of something that “could happen, is happening, here, now, [to] us, this planet, pretty soon” (Anne Mavity 2014: min 18:21). Speculative fiction deals with probable and possible futures which are based on “realities that are with us today” (TheNexusInstitute 2012: min 0:26). Atwood writes about the Earth in the near future. She assumes what the planet will look like regarding its present state and the changes that are likely to happen. So, Atwood simply answers questions like, ‘what might happen if certain things that are already here are further advanced?’. Of course, one issue that she is referring to is advanced climate change, which, for example, poses a great and deadly threat to the protagonist in Oryx and Crake. However, topics are not only restricted to global warming, but she also deals with futuristic technologies, such as bioengineering and the creation of a new species, and modern inventions, in general. Obviously, the events in the novels are exaggerated; however they are not completely invented, but rather based on our present reality. This is a scary aspect, considering what would be possible with our present knowledge, resources and power.

2 All issues mentioned by her are dealt with in the literature selected for this thesis, which will be discussed more closely in the second part of this paper. 12

3 Ecocriticism

In this chapter, ecocriticism, the movement which provides the underlying basis for eco- literature, will be discussed according to definitions by various scholars of this field.

3.1 General Introduction to Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism is an earth-centred approach which has become more and more popular among researchers, authors and scholars. According to Glotfelty, ecocritics deal with questions concerning nature and the environment, such as the following (cf. 1996: xix):

• How is nature represented in this sonnet? • What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel? • How do metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? • How do we characterize nature writing as a genre? • Do men write about nature differently than women do? • In what ways has literature itself affected humankind’s relationship to the natural world? • In what ways and to what effect is the environmental crisis seeping into contemporary literature and popular culture? • What bearing might the science of ecology have on literary studies? • What cross-fertilization is possible between literary studies and environmental discourse in related disciplines such as history, philosophy, psychology, art, history, and ethics? (ibid.)

Various definitions for the term ‘ecocriticism’ have been provided. William Rueckert was probably the first to coin the term ‘ecocriticism’ in 1978, but it was Glotfelty’s definition of ecocriticism as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (1996: xviii) in The Ecocriticism Reader which has reached a wide audience and has often been cited by scholars and ecocritics. Glotfelty emphasizes that human culture and the environment influence each other, which is the underlying basis for ecocriticism: “all ecological criticism shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it” (1996: xix).

Greg Garrard, who has published and edited various essays and books on climate change and ecocriticism, defines the latter as “the study of the relationship of the human and the non-

13 human” (2004: 5). While some scholars exclusively focus on literature, Garrard points out that ecocriticism is closely linked to environmental developments in various other fields as well, such as, for example, philosophy and politics (cf. 2004: 3).

According to Adam Trexler, ecocriticism emerged as “an interdisciplinary group of researchers interested in literature, culture, and the environment” (2015: 17). These researchers worked for the same goal, namely to question the current attitudes towards nature and its issues, to introduce new approaches regarding the protection of the planet, to inform the public and to arouse the interest of the readers; as Trexler puts it, “ecocritics hoped to critique current environmental ideas, draw attention to environmental issues, develop new ways of thinking about the environment, and energize activism.” (2015: 17). However, like most new approaches, attitudes and new ideas, ecocriticism has also been perceived as a ‘provocative development’ and therefore, as Soper and Bradley claim, it has “been greeted with bewilderment or scepticism by critics, theorists and students” (2013: xiii).

Furthermore, scholar Kate Soper provides a good description of what ecocriticism is concerned with:

Ecocriticism has been viewed as an engagement with literary texts that themselves constitute ‘nature-writing’, in other words, that explicitly seek to invoke the qualities of the natural world, animate or inanimate, and reflect upon those qualities. It has also been viewed as an engagement with texts for what they reveal about human relations with the natural environment and/or with other animals. And it has been viewed as a reading of texts with a view to drawing out the enlightenment they shed, or the lessons we can draw from them, about eco-politics and the directions it should take today.” (Soper 2016: 157)

According to Soper, ecocriticism, focuses not only on the natural world or human relations with it. She, for example, also includes eco-politics, a field that connects political and social aspects with environmental phenomena. It should be mentioned that this aspect has become extremely important in developed and affluent countries, as no political decision should be made without an environmental consideration. Of course, it would be ideal if environmental thought was also considered in poorer countries or countries at war, but it is understandable, at the same time, that people who fight for their own survival or the survival of family members, cannot prioritize the question of what is best for the environment in their decision making. Assuming a family father has to provide food for his children, he will surely rather thankfully take food wrapped in plastic without asking where it came from than to wonder whether this product was biologically and environmentally friendly produced. Therefore, environmental issues have to be tackled in rich and safe countries first, and ideally, should generally not exclude socio-

14 political aspects. However, it should be mentioned that without a radical change of our behaviour and our lifestyles, climate change and our natural surroundings will soon become deadly threats to all of us.

With regard to environmental politics, specialist and environmentalist Timothy Clark explains different schisms: firstly, the ‘reform environmentalists’, the most dominant group, assume that nature is mainly perceived as resource for human beings and they thus strive to “defend and conserve it [the natural world] against over-exploitation” (Clark 2011: 2); secondly, another, more radical, variety are the so-called ‘deep ecologists’, who critically revaluate anthropocentrism, for instance, the belief that only in relation to humans, everything has value. A change in self-perception is advocated: “one should see oneself not as an atomistic individual engaged in the world as a resource for consumption and self-assertion, but as a part of greater living identity” (ibid). Therefore, all individuals should base their actions on what is good for nature and the environment. Finally, the stance of ‘eco-feminists’ and supporters of ‘social ecology’ is directed at the domination of humans over other humans, which has expanded to the domination over nature: “Ecological problems are seen to result from structures of hierarchy and elitism in human society, geared to exploit both other people and the natural world as a source of profit” (ibid). Clark explains that supporters of this direction within ecocriticism are convinced that the environmental degradation can be linked to the “historical oppression of women” (2011: 111), and it is believed that the superiority that men feel over women should be compared to the superiority between humans and nature, as nature, like women, would take up a lower position in the hierarchy of power. Therefore, ecological feminism primarily attempts to end sexism and all forms of naturism, the domination over nature (cf. Hartmann 2006: 93).

3.2 The Cultural Relevance of Ecocriticism

Within the last decades, ecocritical studies have exploded around the world. This is a welcome development as we are facing more environmental problems every day. Therefore, people need to be sensitized and ecocritics can contribute through their works. We need eco-literature more than ever; while the icecaps are melting on the poles and emissions of greenhouse gases are increasing, people need to grasp that we are indeed facing an existential threat. Due to financial reasons, greed and the laziness to act, we are slowly sacrificing our beautiful living planet, 15 which depends on the sustainable cooperation of its inhabitants to survive. Consciousness can effect this action, and, therefore, consciousness has to be raised through ecocriticism: “An ecologically focussed criticism is a worthy enterprise primarily because it directs our attention to matters about which we need to be thinking. Consciousness raising is its most important task” (Glotfelty 1996: xxiv). The task to create awareness is also the motivation of authors of eco-literature:

Most ecocritical work shares a common motivation: the troubling awareness that we have reached the age of environmental limits, a time when the consequences of human actions are damaging the planet’s basic life support systems. We are there. Either we change our ways or we face global catastrophe, destroying much beauty and exterminating countless fellow species in our headlong race to apocalypse. (Glotfelty 1996: xx)

According to Soper and Bradley, the aim of ecocriticism is to analyse and celebrate nature, or in other words, “[e]cocriticism aspires to understand and often celebrate the natural world, yet is does so indirectly, by focussing primarily on written texts” (2013: xvi). However, as mentioned before, ecological criticism also appears in various other forms, such as movies, photographs, speeches or song lyrics, for example. It is often pointed out that ecocritics intend to spread ecological concern, and as all audiences should be reached, the aim is to deal with environmentalism in all kinds of genres and influential works of art (cf. Kerridge 2014: 369f).

But regardless of its form, all eco-literary works aim at tackling our environmental issues and at inspiring “activist commitment to the protection or amelioration of the world’s environmental health” (Soper and Bradley 2013: xvi). Nature writer and literary scholar Richard Kerridge wishes that ecological values will gain widespread popularity and that various authors and readers will be influenced, so that even more ecocritical works will emerge. He further hopes that “environmental criteria will become an expected part of debate about all kinds of new artistic work” (2014: 361), which should lead to a different everyday behaviour of the people and inspire change.

Environmental writers want to draw attention to and define the environmental impact of eco- literature. Researchers are convinced that the problem with regard to our environmental crisis is not the people’s “lack of knowledge but […] a disconnection between what we know and how we act. We do not behave as if we knew what we know; our behaviour implies a different state of knowledge” (Kerridge 2014: 363). This quotation is very powerful as it conveys the core of the problem. While our environmental situation calls for immediate and drastic action, our actual actions relate a different story. According to people’s attitudes one could believe that

16 the climate crisis will possibly concern future generations in hundreds of years. But what about the millions of people that die in natural disasters, such as droughts and storms, every year? What about all nonhuman species that are already extinct or on the verge of extinction? This indifferent behaviour triggers the ecocritics’ main hope that humans finally start to care, and that people show concern that “spreads throughout our working lives, home lives, recreational lives and political lives, making a difference” (Kerridge 2014: 365).

3.3 The History of Ecocriticism

Even though a few scholars and authors within the humanities published their environmental works in the sixties and seventies, the environmental movement had little impact on literature and the arts or on society in general. Researchers worked individually, in different places of the world and their works were not categorized as environmental criticism yet, but as American Studies, scientific literature or human ecology instead (cf. Glotfelty 1996: 17). Authors hardly ever cited each other’s texts, not knowing that such works even existed. Therefore, “each critic was inventing an environmental approach to literature in isolation” (ibid.), before the field of environmental literary studies started to thrive in the mid-eighties and nineties. According to Soper and Bradley, ecocriticism’s ‘official’ history started only in the early 1990s, when “some literary critics felt it imperative to respond to environmental crises” (2013: xix). Scholars, researchers and authors started to reflect on the seriousness and the urgency of environmental issues, and at the end of the twentieth century, ecocriticism had become a distinct approach to literary studies, which led to the institutionalization of this field (cf. ibid). The critical focus on nature and the environment in literature gained popularity, and in the 1990s, American universities started to offer courses on environmental issues and environmental literature before the phenomenon spread globally; “it [ecocriticism] became a relatively institutionalized part of academic life; an ever-growing array of publications, conferences, and classes are devoted to the subject” (Soper and Bradley 2013: xiii).

Hubert Zapf, a German literary scholar, describes ecocriticism as “one of the most rapidly developing areas of research and teaching in literary and cultural studies” (2016: 1) and summarizes the significant growth of the phenomenon as follows:

ecocriticism has developed from a marginal phenomenon in literature and culture departments into an institutionalized academic field; that the sheer quantity of research 17

activities, study programs, and publications has been growing exponentially; that ecocriticism has transformed from a regional and national into a transnational and global phenomenon; and that increasing diversification and interdisciplinary openness have led to an unprecedented multiplication of approaches, methods, subjects, and epistemic frames. (Zapf 2016: 7)

From a regional movement focussing on American literature, ecocriticism has grown into a global, interdisciplinary field, occupying numerous scholars, researchers and authors who focus on nature in their works to contribute to the spreading of environmental awareness around the globe; in this context, Clark notes: “A broad archive is now building up, tracing different conceptions of nature and their effects throughout the history and cultures of the world” (2011: 4). Westling refers to the great success of environmental approaches in literary studies despite the field’s recent emergence (after all, it is only in its third decade), and she mentions numerous conferences and well attended events at which a great number of ecocritics and writers of eco- literary works gather annually (cf. 2014: 2, 6).

Additionally, various influential organizations and associations have formed to support the cause. One of these associations is the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE)3, which, despite being formed in America, is now globally active with significant subsidiaries in Japan and the United Kingdom. “[I]t organises regular conferences and publishes a journal that includes literary analysis, creative writing and articles on environmental education and activism” (Garrard 2004: 4). At the beginning, ASLE dealt mainly with poetic and narrative texts, but it has recently started to focus on a general, cultural ecocriticism, including “studies of popular scientific writing, film, TV, art, architecture and other cultural artefacts such as theme parks, zoos and shopping malls” (ibid.). The European version of this association, founded in 2004, is called EASLCE, European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and Environment4, which presents ecocriticism as “a rather large tent, where work on nature writing can sit comfortably next to animal studies, and postcolonial theory rubs shoulders with ecofeminism” (Bergthaller n.d.: online), on its website. Other global actors and organizations which are widely known for their environmental commitment are, for

3 For further information about this association use the following link to visit the official website: https://www.asle.org/.

4 For further information about this association use the following link to visit the official website: https://www.easlce.eu/.

18 instance, Greenpeace International, World Wide Fund for Nature, and Friends of the Earth International.

However, an interest in people’s surroundings and the environment and in writing about nature evolved much earlier. What comes to mind, for example, are Romantic writers whose poems focused on the glorification of nature as response to urbanization and industrialization5. One example of ecological thought in Romantic nature poetry is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”6, which was first published in 1798. In this ballad, the mariner shoots an albatross, an act which symbolically represents people’s disrespect for animals and nature. As a consequence of this digression, the mariner faces deadly obstacles and has to suffer for the rest of his life. The didactic element and main message that is conveyed is to love nature, which includes the respect and appreciation for all creatures and living things, a topic revisited in contemporary eco-literature and theorized in eco-criticism. Another example is the Wordsworthian poem “I wondered lonely as a cloud”7, written in the late eighteenth century, which emphasizes the beauty of our natural environment and the importance of plants and all nature. Due to personifications of nature and the naturalization of man, the whole universe is connected. Thus powerful metaphors, human and non-human elements are connected, transgressing the boundaries that had been constructed between nature and culture.

However, Garrard claims that there is a difference between the early forms of nature writing and today’s ecological genres: “the ‘nature’ that Wordsworth valorises is not the nature that contemporary environmentalists seek to protect. Romantic nature is never seriously endangered, […] rather it is loved for its vastness, beauty and endurance” (Garrard 2004: 43). Romantic authors were rather concerned with what nature triggers in the human mind and how people respond to it, but they did not focus on the endangered planet, as it was probably no pressing issue then. Hubert Zapf, in turn, insists that the proto-ecological thought is not solely the result of Romanticism’s great writers but reaches further back “to the Renaissance, the

5 Thomas describes this movement as follows: “There had gradually emerged attitudes to the natural world which were essentially incompatible with the direction in which English society was moving. The growth in towns had led to a new longing for the countryside. The progress of cultivation had fostered a taste for weeds, mountains and unsubdued nature. The new-found security from wild animals had generated an increasing concern to protect birds and preserve wild creatures in their natural state. Economic independence of animal power and urban isolation from animal faring had nourished emotional attitudes which were hard, if not impossible, to reconcile with the exploitation of animals by which most people lived.” (1984: 301)

6 For the lyrical ballad see Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2008).

7 For Wordsworth’s poem see William Wordsworth (1998). 19

Middle Ages, and to classical antiquity, as well as to the rich ecological heritage of non-Western cultural traditions” (2016: 6).

3.4 Possible Solutions and Futuristic Outlook

We need to learn how to value nature and how we can live without harming our surroundings. As soon as we accept that, we can fight for a better tomorrow. However, this cannot be done by one person or one country alone, as “environmental problems are now global in scale and their solutions will require worldwide collaboration” (Glotfelty 1996: xxiv). Our political leaders must be convinced that we want to tackle this problem. Only with their support – in means of new regulations and laws – and only in worldwide collaboration, the climate crisis and global warming can be stopped. “Ecocriticism has sought since its inception to make the study of literature (and other cultural manifestations) relevant to the innumerable environmental crises, local and global, that characterized the end of the twentieth century and that threaten to define the twenty-first” (Soper and Bradley 2013: xiii).

As supported by most scholars, the destruction of the earth was brought about by humans and we must account for our mistakes instead of waiting endlessly for the issue to somehow solve itself. “It is human ways of living, after all, that – much in contrast to the cyclical and reproductive mode of existence of other animals – are responsible for most environmental damage, and they alone who can do something about it” (Soper 2016: 160). In this case, the only solution is that humankind starts to act in order to save what can still be saved and what has not yet suffered from irreversible damage, such as, for instance, the extinction of a species.

Some scholars, such as for example Kate Soper, argue that the key problem is the difficulty to combine our advanced, rich, and comfortable lifestyles with the protection of our environment; some people will always refuse an environmentally friendly way of living, if they have to revert to a ‘simpler’ way of life by voluntarily giving up certain merits, conveniences and luxuries; so the main question is, how to focus on “the conditions of human fulfilment and how these can be secured in an ecologically sustainable mode” (2016: 160).

With regard to eco-literature and ecocriticism, due to it being at an early stage, it is difficult to state the exact effect and impact the movement has had on the emissions of greenhouse gases

20 and the protection of the planet. However, the fact that ecocriticism and eco-literature have become a global phenomenon that has inspired uncountable events and numerous researchers, authors, associations, and individuals to support this cause, such as an Austrian student who dedicates her diploma thesis to this topic, for example, has shown how successful the movement has become already. The movement aims at spreading environmental thought more widely, and with further publications and artistic works in all forms this will hopefully be achieved.

4 Affective Ecologies and the Creation of Empathy

One method writers of eco-literature use to raise the reader’s awareness about our environmental crisis is by triggering emotional responses, and particularly empathy. The reader’s emotional response to a certain work is intentionally planned; authors anticipate the sensations that are triggered in the audience when they are confronted with the texts (cf. Hogan 2013: 6). Creating empathy is quite a successful approach, as it usually causes dismay in the reader and may eventually lead to action.

Despite the common interchangeable use of the terms ‘empathy’ and ‘sympathy’, specialists clearly distinguish between them. Thus, the former means ‘feeling with’ (in literature, simulating a character’s emotional state), and the latter, ‘feeling for’ (in literature, it includes the reader’s feelings of interest, compassion, and caring for a character) (cf. Mossner 2017: 25). While ‘empathy’ could regard positive situations as well, ‘sympathy’ always implies that something negative has happened and that someone feels sorry for somebody else.

Empathy is defined as ”the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions” (Krznaric 2014: online). Philosopher Roman Krznaric is convinced that empathy has to be a collective force and if everyone was less self-obsessed and led an empathic life instead, we could solve some major issues that divide our society; he thus explains: “Political and ethnic violence, religious intolerance, poverty and hunger, human rights abuses, global warming – there is an urgent need to harness the power of empathy to tackle these crises and bridge social divides” (Krznaric 2014: online). Another definition of the concept is provided by literary scholar Suzanne Keen: “Empathy, a vicarious, spontaneous sharing of affect, can be provoked by witnessing another’s emotional state, by hearing about another’s condition, or even by

21 reading” (2010: 62f). She continues that “we feel what we believe to be the emotions of others” (ibid.).

Without the creation of empathy, stories would not leave a trace; without empathy stories could not affect the readers or influence their thinking. Delaney describes the effect of empathy as follows:

At the heart of empathy is being able to imagine yourself in the shoes of another. Once that happens, something great occurs: their suffering becomes, in part, our suffering, and we’re either compelled to act or at least, feel troubled by the situation. Without empathy, someone else’s suffering is abstract – processed by our brains, without reaching the heart. (Delaney 2017: online)

Emotional involvement of the reader is essential for environmental texts to serve their purpose. Firstly, it is of great importance when works are produced, and secondly, it is essential for societal effects. Eco-fiction should not only catch the reader’s attention, but it also aims at making the readers think after they have finished the books. The texts need to create strong empathic emotions to convince the readers to act and to contribute as well as they can to save our dying planet. Authors use empathic eco-critical texts to get their message across by moving the readers deep inside. Delaney hints at how empathy could be the solution: “with an emphatic response there is the possibility of action and change” (ibid.). As we know, immediate action is the only option to prevent global warming from further progression. This action is desired, and as it can only be achieved through the creation of empathy, environmental narratives attempt to feature horrible living conditions and dreadful experiences for their protagonists, whose suffering is often presented from an internal perspective and conveyed though rich metaphorical language.

Due to an empathic affective response, readers connect with the characters while they pursue the story, even without their noticing it. Suddenly the characters’ pains are shared; suddenly threats are felt as if they were real. “Novels”, as Delaney continues, “take us into the minds of the characters and make us part of their suffering. We are them” (ibid.). It should be mentioned that this phenomenon does not exclude non-human protagonists. If the stories are told from the view of animals or plants and their lives with all problems and obstacles are rendered, we easily identify with them, and again the ‘mechanism of empathy’ kicks in. Weik von Mossner explains in this context: “it is through the mechanism of empathy […] that readers map the sensations, emotions, and movements of that fictional body onto their own, thus understanding, and literally feeling, its interaction with the environment, its pleasures and its pain“ (2016: 540).

The fact that we are able to imaginatively experience the challenges our beloved characters face in the stories can be explained through neurological analysis. According to neurologist Antonio Damasio, cognition and emotion are automatically connected; he believes that “the organism interacts with the environment as an ensemble: the interaction is neither of the body alone nor of the brain alone” (1994: xxvii). A group of neuroscientists around Giacomo Rizzolatti contributed with their discovery that in our brains the same regions are triggered, whether we experience something ourselves, or watch somebody else doing so. “Mirror neurons are cells in our brains that fire both when we carry out an action and when we watch [or read about] another person carrying out the same action” (Weik von Mossner 2017: 23). Therefore, we may infer with Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia: “The perception of pain or grief, or of disgust experienced by others, activates the same areas of the cerebral cortex that are involved when we experience these emotions ourselves” (2008: xii). Readers map the feelings, situations and sensations the protagonists encounter in literature, and it clearly leaves a trace on the readers as well. In other words, with regard to our brain, there is no real difference whether we experience a certain event ourselves, or whether it happens to characters in a story, if the story is well written. Imagined or real events, readers share the characters’ experience. The phenomenon of this blurring, this unclear distinction of real or imagined, was first referred to as ‘embodied simulation’ by Vittorio Gallese, an Italian psychobiologist and neuroscientist (cf. Weik von Mossner 2017: 26). Mental simulation takes place, and it is “embodied because it involves brain areas, such as the premotor cortex, that are also active when our bodies engage in actual movement” (Weik von Mossner 2017: 52).

Further proof for the efficiency of narratives is provided by psychologist Jeffry Zacks, who highlights the lasting effect of narratives: “Whether we experience events in real life, watch them in a movie, or hear [or read] about them in a story, we build perceptual and memory representations in the same format” (2015: 150). This suggests that narratives have a significant impact and we can learn from them as much as we can learn from our own experiences. Consequently, we might even change our attitudes and beliefs, which is intended by environmental narratives. Along the same line, Weik von Mossner argues, “affective and rational understanding of readers – and even that of non-readers – can be shaped or at least influenced by environmental narrative” (2016: 534). She, however, bases her claim on Lawrence Buell, an American literary scholar and one of the pioneers of ecocriticism, and his belief that nature writers’ great, personal love for the nonhuman leads to “a deeply protective feeling for nature” (1995: 137).

Emotional involvement guarantees the environmental narrative’s success. This is of great importance, regarding the fact that “ecocriticism has placed great trust in the ability of environmental narratives to have lasting effects on the attitudes and behaviour of their readers” (Weik von Mossner 2016: 534). As mentioned earlier, this involvement is the narrative’s advantage over scientific explanations and facts. Therefore, environmental narratives are not inferior to ‘scientific non-fiction’ as David Herman, a scholar at Ohio State University, explains aptly in the following statement: “Science explains how in general water freezes when (all other things being equal) its temperature reaches zero degrees centigrade; but it takes a story to convey what it is like to lose one’s footing on slippery ice on a late afternoon in December 2004, under a steel-grey sky” (2007: 3). The latter cues readers to feel or at least to imagine the sensation of slipping on ice, so that we can feel with the character. This helps us to understand the character’s emotional state and their behaviour. According to Patrick Hogan, narrative is always connected with emotion (cf. Hogan 2003: 5); and emotions are the “basic mechanism that connects us to our environment, shapes our knowledge, and motivates our actions” (Weik von Mossner 2016: 536). However, it is often pointed out that the emotions that are triggered cause rather individual reactions. In most cases, everyone connects a different, personal, real- world experience with a certain event, action or situation. Therefore, when reading about a protagonist’s experience, such as slipping on ice, for example, readers will connect different experiences with it and consequently form various associations with it. Some might remember positive childhood memories, while others might, for example, associate an embarrassing moment when falling in front of mean classmates or strangers, or, as Weik von Mossner explains, “it is a personal version of that experience, one that is cued and guided by words on the page but enacted by the reader in a highly individual way” (2016: 539). Nonetheless, empathetic affective responses are deliberately guided by the writers to attain a desired goal. Certain readers are deliberately cued to feel a certain way, a method that is called ‘authorial strategic empathizing’. Literary scholar Suzanne Keen defines this theory as the author’s “attempt to direct an emotional transaction through a fictional work aimed at a particular audience” (Keen 2010: 83). She continues that these ‘authorial audiences’ are “comprised of those ideal readers imagined and hoped for by authors” (ibid.).

To sum up, it can be stated that the creation of empathy is the environmental author’s most important and most effective secret ‘weapon’ to move and convince their readers. Furthermore, it is a helpful tool to create successful eco-literary works, which aim at inspiring their audiences

24 to action. Which strategies authors use in order to create such effects and to contribute to affective ecologies will be in the centre of the second part of this thesis.

4.1 Animals and Empathy

As one chapter in the second part of the thesis is concerned with the creation of empathy in animal stories, a short theoretical background about animals is provided.

Humans have always had a curious relationship to animals, as literary scholar Erica Fudge reminds us: “We live with animals, we recognize them, we even name some of them, but at the same time we use them as if they were inanimate, as if they were objects” (2002: 8). Of course, there are many exceptions to this statement, such as for example animal right activists, but referring to humankind in general, Fudge’s observation is often true. Fudge concludes, “[t]he illogic of this relationship is one that, on a day-to-day basis, we choose to evade, even refuse to acknowledge as present” (ibid.).

From early on, philosophers, writers and scientists have wondered what it feels like to be an animal. One of these philosophers was Thomas Nagel, who wrote a famous essay in 1974, entitled “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”. It deals with his imagining the life of the animal, but the philosopher is convinced that a nonhuman experience cannot be conveyed in a text as it will always be influenced by the mind of its human creator. Therefore, all humans can do is to imagine. Nagel reflects the following:

I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present experience, or by imagining segments gradually subtracted from it, or by imagining some combination of additions, subtractions, and modifications. To the extent that I could look and behave like […] a bat without changing my fundamental structure, my experiences would not be anything like the experiences of those animals (Nagel 1974: online)

Thus, a great problem regarding the authentic rendering of animal stories is that even if the protagonists of a certain work are animals, human subjectivity can never be taken out completely, as the stories have to be expressed in languages understood by humans (cf. Weik von Mossner 2017: 125). This means that human language is necessarily included when rendering nonhuman experiences.

However, others disagree. What it feels like to be an animal can be approximated due to “continuities between human and nonhuman experiences” (Weik von Mossner 2017: 112). Furthermore, Marc Beckoff, a biologist, suggests that “if you really want to know how animals live, think, and feel from their point of view, then you need to join them in their world” (Beckoff 2007: 38). Every attempt at rendering an authentic animal story without careful observation of behaviour in the species’ habitat and natural surroundings is insufficient and impossible. Ernest Thompson Seton is often mentioned in connection to realistic animal stories. This form of narrative would be unthinkable without the “sustained observation of their [animals’] behaviour, exploring the animal mind with the imaginative empathy of Ernest Thompson Seton” (Goodbody 2016: 251). Seton did not only author realistic animal stories, but he also observed the animals and drew sketches, which illustrate his texts. Various animal stories which are narrated from the animals’ perspectives serve as primary literature for this thesis. Therefore, the issue of rendering animal stories authentically will be revisited in chapter 7.

With regard to empathic responses to animal stories, a term called ‘trans-species empathy’ should be mentioned. Weik von Mossner defines this kind of empathy as feeling with a different species; “human spectators – consciously or unconsciously – empathize with nonhuman animals, feeling their joy, their fear, their terror and pain” (2017: 106). This occurs quite often, as soon as we see a dog limping on the street or read about illegal whale hunts in the newspaper, we react emotionally. In a study conducted by psychologist Robert Franklin and his team, it was investigated how the suffering of animals affected the human brain. Participants were shown images of people and dogs who suffered and the results proved that “there are many overlapping [brain] regions in humans’ empathic responses to viewing animal and human suffering, particularly in areas classically associated with empathic response” (Franklin et al 2013: 225).

Other scholars, such as for example Allan Burns, go even one step further by claiming that the existence of empathy depends on other species, and that we need empathy to recognise social wrongs. He claims, “[w]ithout an interest in the minds of other animals, empathy cannot exist. Without empathy, ethics cannot exist” (Burns 2002: 348).

5 Native Ecologies

Environmental awareness and protective attitudes towards nature have often been mentioned when referring to Native populations. This is confirmed by various sources, such as scholar Shepard Krech, who argues that “[s]ince the early 1970s, a cherished received wisdom has been that North American Indians were original ecologists and conservationists” (2007: 3). Native peoples have lived in harmony with their surroundings, cherishing natural beauty, animals and plants. As “indigenous people possessed extensive and precise knowledge of their environment”, Krech continues, “[t]here should be no difficulty inferring that American Indian comprehension of relationships between living organisms and their organic and inorganic environments has always been ecological” (2007: 4). An additional confirmation of such assumptions is offered by Greg Garrard, who states that “[s]ince the sixteenth century at least, ‘primitive’ people have been represented as dwelling in harmony with nature, sustaining one of the most widespread and seductive myths of the non-European ‘other’” (2004: 120). Furthermore, this general belief concerning Native populations’ relationship with nature is also addressed by anthropologist Ernest Burch Jr.: “It is axiomatic among anthropologists and an article of faith among Natives that indigenous North Americans lived in harmony with their environments prior to European contact” (2007: 123). Even though Burch Jr. generally believes that indigenous populations lived by a sustainable and environmentally friendly attitude, he does not conceal examples which show that Indigenous people, too, have contributed, to some extent, to the degradation of the environment. Certain animal species, for instance, were overhunted, which, eventually, led to their extinction: “the Alaskan Inupiat exterminated the caribou and mountain sheep populations in the western part of their territory” (Burch Jr. 2007: 145) and “the Caribou Inuit wiped out the musk oxen in their territory” (ibid.).

To get a clearer picture of this issue, the opinion and experience of a member of the First Nations should be considered. A significant contribution, which broadens our understanding of the relationship between Indigenous populations and the environment, is offered by Leanne Simpson, a Canadian author, academic and activist for Indigenous peoples’ rights, who is a descendent of the Anishinaabe Nation herself (cf. Wainwright 2004: 181). According to her, Native populations originally lived eco-friendly and respected nature. “It is well documented by the early Europeans that the land, forests, fish, and animals were plentiful and in good health at the time of contact” (Simpson 2004: 123). Furthermore, she strongly emphasizes that environmental destruction started with the Europeans’ colonialization of North America and

27 their forced assimilation programmes, in which numerous Indigenous people were forced to deny, and even worse, to forget their heritage in order to be assimilated to become ‘good Christians’8.

According to Leanne Simpson, the destruction of nature went along with the attempt to eliminate First Nations (cf. 2004: 123). Colonialization has left its marks in Canada, as pointed out in the following passage:

It is during this period that we start to see the impact of colonization on the forests, animals, and fish in Indigenous Territories. The fur trade decimated beaver populations in regions where commercial trapping was driven by the price of pelts. Forests in southeastern Ontario and Quebec were demolished to support European shipbuilding enterprises supporting war efforts. Fish stocks in the inland lakes of central Canada began to crash as unsustainable commercial fishing by the colonizers seriously depleted the stocks. The construction of the railway signified the end of the buffalo and the way of life of the buffalo Peoples. (Simpson 2004: 125)

However, environmental destruction of Indigenous territories is still visible today, and can be found throughout Canada. Numerous Native tribes suffer from environmental catastrophes on their lands, as confirmed by Indigenous writer Simpson, who provides various examples to underline the severity of this issue:

Indigenous Nations currently face some of the most devastating effects of environmental destruction in Canada. The Gwitch’in and First Nations in the Yukon are battling toxic contamination brought to their territories through long-range transport, industry, and government ignorance. Inuit Elders in Nunavut warn of the dire consequences of global warming as they witness accelerated climate change. The Mohawks of Akwesasne in southeastern Ontario continue to fight against industrial contamination of their waters, air, land, fish, and animals. (Simpson 2004: 122)

Additionally, environmental injustice against the Cree Nations, the Innu Nation, the Haida Nation and various others is mentioned. Simpson firmly believes that Canada still exhibits its colonial behaviour towards the First Nations and that “[i]ssues of environmental protection and

8 With the motto ‘to kill the Indian in the child’ the Canadian Indian Residential School programs were carried out (cf. Young 2015: 63-67). The aim was to separate First Nations’ children from their tribes and families to put them into boarding schools, where they were stripped off their identities in order to be ‘civilized’. This process was called ‘assimilation’ and meant the alienation from the native values and indigenous lifestyles. Scholar Bryanne Young writes, “[c]hildren were often forcibly removed from their families and communities, prohibited from practicing their culture and speaking their languages” (Young 2015: 67 online). In addition to that, in most cases, these children were mentally and physically abused, and tragically, numerous students of such residential schools did not survive the horrendous process of assimilation, which sadly included, among others, starvation and the exposure to medical experimentation (cf. ibid.). 28 the management of natural resources cannot be resolved until […] jurisdiction over Indigenous lands is restored to the hands and hearts of Indigenous Peoples” (ibid.).

Indigenous peoples traditionally pass on their knowledge and their wisdoms from generation to generation. Stories and ancient legends were transmitted orally before they were put into writing and many tribes believe in spirits and feel a close connection to animals and plants. The relationship with nature is highly valued, and according to Simpson, “much of the intact wilderness Canadians enjoy is a direct result of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and sustainable ways of life” (2004: 122). She emphasizes the strength the First Nations’ ancestors, who resisted colonialization and the process of assimilation, to protect their culture, their beliefs and environmental thought and notes that “[i]t is our Ancestors who worked so hard to ensure that Indigenous values and philosophies were passed down to their children and their grandchildren’s grandchildren” (Simpson 2004: 125). Therefore, she continues, “the revival of Indigenous environmental philosophies” (ibid.) should be attributed to them. Indigenous ancestors can be seen as protectors of the Native land, and thanks to their resistance, there are still current generations of First Nations in Canada today, whose tasks include the spreading of Indigenous philosophies: “[i]t is a testament to them [the ancestors] that we are still here today, able to share our knowledge with those who will listen and use it in good ways“ (ibid.).

Furthermore, a strong interconnection between humans and nature is highlighted: “Indigenous world views or philosophical traditions view humans not only as part of the environment or the complex web of life, but as the environment itself” (ibid.). This means that every person, and every living thing in general, carries and represents a part of the environment. Thus, humans and nature strongly depend on each other, which leads Simpson to the following conclusion: “If humans are in essence the environment, then when the environment is sick, humans will also be sick” (2004: 126). Susie O’Brien refers to a similar saying by the Cree Nations which carries an urgent warning: “when you destroy the land, you destroy the animals. When you destroy the animals, you destroy the people” (1998: 187).

Finally, a highly interesting observation concerning First Nations and their surroundings is that the English term ‘environment’ is inadequate to express the Native peoples’ understanding of the concept: the English term ‘environment’ normally refers to natural surroundings, excluding human beings, which, however, are included in Indigenous thinking and the Indigenous perception of the world (cf. Simpson 2004: 126).

Recently, various Indigenous works have been analysed with an ecocritical approach, as confirmed by scholar Mita Banerjee who states: ”ecocritics have often turned towards indigenous cultures, to whom they ascribed an innate knowledge of the land and an almost genetic ecological intuition” (2016: 197). However, she adds that such views have to be considered with care, as they bear the danger that, Indigenous people are quickly pictured “in the primitivist stereotype of the hunter-gatherer” (ibid.). Even though, in this passage, Banerjee specifically refers to ‘Native Americans’, who are the Native people of the United States of America, the statement also applies to members of the Canadian First Nations.

As already mentioned in chapter 3 of this thesis, ecocriticism is often linked to the domination and superiority of one race over another and to topics regarding ethnicity. Christine Gerhardt points out that such an approach offers new interpretations and new readings of Indigenous texts (cf. Gerhardt 2006: 211f). As most Indigenous people are strongly connected to their environments, they see it as their purpose in life to pass on their beliefs. This is their contribution to the protection of the planet: to share their respectful attitudes, to spread their knowledge. A highly effective method of doing so is through stories, as they have “opened up new worlds of imagination for a non-Native audience” (King 1990: xi). According to Maria Löschnigg and other scholars, narratives have an important function as Native writers express theoretic concepts in their stories (cf. 2020a: 272). Theory is conveyed through narratives and, therefore, reaches a broad audience.

6 Primary Canadian Eco-Fiction

In this chapter, a brief introduction to the pieces of Canadian narrative fiction explored in this thesis will be offered. Therefore, short summaries of the novels and short stories are provided in subchapter 6.2. These will help readers who are unfamiliar with these works to better understand the analyses in chapters 7 and 8. First, however, introductory information regarding the selected literature is provided in the following subchapter.

6.1 Introduction to the Selected Texts

In the following chapters of this thesis, six Canadian novels and seven Canadian short stories written by various authors will be discussed from an ecocritical perspective. All works can be categorized as eco-literature and more specifically as eco-fiction. However, it should be pointed 30 out that two of these novels blur the borders between fiction and non-fiction. Sid Marty’s The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek accounts real events of bear maulings that happened in Banff National Park in the 1950s, but as some chapters are told from a bear’s point of view, the novel’s fictionality is obvious. Additionally, Charlotte Gill offers an interesting insight into the world of tree planters in her novel Eating Dirt. Even though the story is based on her own experiences, the rendering of events and the characters seem rather fictitious.

Additionally, the years of publication of the selected literature varies from 1892, the publication of Charles George Douglas Roberts’ “Do Seek Their Meat from God” to the year 2014, when Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle was published. Many powerful stories that deal with environmental issues are written by First Nation writers, which is why texts, such as “An Athabasca Story” by Waren Cariou, “Goodbye Snauq” and “Blessing Song” by Lee Maracle, and King’s novel will be included in the analysis.

Furthermore, two works of Margaret Atwood are discussed, a short story called “The Tent”, which focuses on the disintegration of the environment, and the successful novel Oryx and Crake, the first part of the so-called MaddAddam trilogy, a dystopian series that pictures the world in the near future when climate change and state-of-the-art technologies, such as genetical engineering, define life on earth.

Finally, some texts provide the readers with insight into the lives, minds and habits of animalistic or other non-human protagonists. Barbara Gowdy’s novel The White Bone and short stories such as “Silverspot” and “Do Seek their Meat from God” focus primarily on animals, whereas “Cedar Sings” describes the story of a cedar tree and ‘Raven’, a shape shifter.

6.2 Synopses of the Primary Literature9

In this subchapter, summaries of the discussed works are provided. The novels’ summaries are followed by those of the short stories. The order of works is completely arbitrary.

9 The complete body of primary literature is listed in the bibliography. 31

6.2.1 The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy

Mud, an elephant calf, and her adoptive family, the ‘She-S’s’, roam the African plains in search of food sources and water. Not only are the elephants threatened by the longest drought that their matriarch remembers, but also by ivory hunters. One day, as the She-S’s feed at a water hole, they are surprised by poachers, who kill the majority of Mud’s family. Despite a fierce fight and great resistance, the matriarch, several cows and newborns are brutally slaughtered. As their tusks and feet are cut off, their ascension to the sky herd of the ‘She10’ is denied. In the hectic fight, Date Bed, another calf and Mud’s best friend, is separated from the family and for her remaining months she wanders lonely through the desert, fending off big cats and dangerous situations until her death. As other elephant families meet the same destiny – for example, the so-called ‘She-B’s-And-B’s are wiped out completely during an attack – all remaining elephants focus on their last hope, namely to find the ‘White Bone’, a rib of a slaughtered calf, which is said to point to the ‘Safe Place’, a place, where elephants are protected from hunger and poachers. At the end of the novel, even though no one has reached the ‘Safe Place’ yet, Mud, who is gifted with visions of the future, sees various animals in a swamp surrounded by lush, green grass. When she spots an amused human in a vehicle nearby, who observes the animals, her vision ends.

6.2.2 The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King

Dr. Gabriel Quinn is a skilled scientist at a biotechnological company called ‘Domidion International’, which produces energy by abstracting oil and experimenting with different chemicals. Feeling responsible for an environmental catastrophe, Gabriel travels to Samaritan Bay in British Columbia, where his mother and his sister lived in a Native American reservation, to attempt suicide. He had created a bacterium, called “GreenSweep”, which was used as a defoliant to accelerate the construction of a pipeline. However, the bacterium killed trees, undergrowth, animals and washed into creeks, rivers and the ocean around Samaritan Bay, which led to the death of 137 people, all plants and sea life, and the hospitalization of many. Gabriel’s suicide is unsuccessful and as he gets to know the locals and their stories, the

10 As explained in the glossary the ‘She’ is defined as “the first elephant and the mother of all elephants” (Gowdy 1998: xvi).

32 alarming dimensions of the environmental disaster are visible. Samaritan Bay was a tourist attraction during the turtle hatching season but all that is left is a ghost town with few remaining inhabitants. After various healing rituals, the inhabitants of Samaritan Bay are filled with joy and excitement when the first turtle returns to lay eggs, when fish are spotted in the ocean and the first twittering of birds is audible. The first signs of life leave the inhabitants with hope.

6.2.3 Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill

The narrator prepares for another season in the forests of British Columbia’s West Coast. Like in the years before, equipped with shovels, seedlings, boots, thermal underwear and duct tape, the narrator meets her co-workers, who she would spend 101 days with to pursue a common goal: the reforestation of the Canadian forests. Tree planters always follow the same routine: after a quick breakfast the crew is dropped off at a remote, clear-cut area with thousands of tree seedlings in their bags. Sometimes these areas are located on uninhabited islands which are only accessible by boats, or areas that are surrounded by deep forests which can only be traversed by helicopters. In the evenings, their aching bodies force the tree planters to rest before the same routine will be repeated on the days to follow. Twenty-five cents are earned for every planted tree. The physically exhausted crew is often cut off from civilization for months, creating ‘conifer plantations’ in the harshest weather conditions. One day, the narrator and her boyfriend are surprised by an angry grizzly sow and her three cubs, which rummage through their backpacks and steal their food. Finally, after an exhausting season, all tree planters return to their normal lives, until they will gather again to counteract deforestation in British Columbia.

6.2.4 The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek by Sid Marty

Generations of bears have fed on garbage dumps and landfills in Whiskey Creek, an area in Banff National Park. Many accidents have happened due to uncareful tourists who intentionally approach bears too closely or who dispose of human food waste incorrectly. Therefore, in the spring of 1980, it is decided that all garbage has to be carried to Calgary, in hope that the bears would return to the berry fields to feed. However, as the berry crop was destroyed by early frost and the garbage bins of the restaurants, despite official warnings concerning the violation of

33 correct garbage management, still provide abundant food, bears are driven to town more closely and they continue to feed on high-calorie food scraps. In May 1980, Sticky Mouth, a very dark- coloured grizzly bear is woken from hibernation due to a volcanic eruption. Starved due to a lack of berries he lingers near Whiskey Creek, close to the inhabited areas, and feeds on the humans’ poorly stored waste. When on 24 August, 1980, two men approach his hiding place unintentionally, he feels threatened and attacks. Two weeks later, the area where the attack happened is reopened but, again, two hikers are mauled by a large bear. The park wardens’ hunt proves to be unsuccessful, however, enormous grizzly tracks are found. After another mauling in the wetlands of Whiskey Creek, a gigantic, unusually dark-coloured grizzly bear is snared and killed. Sticky Mouth leaves this earth forever. The bear maulings of 1980 serve as wake- up calls for proper garbage storage and a more effective wildlife protection.

6.2.5 Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth

Next to the thawing potholes of the Canadian Arctic tundra, a male Eskimo curlew claims his mating spot in June, as fellow members of his species have been doing for millenniums. Filled with mating madness he defends his territory fiercely and waits feverishly for a female to arrive. He remembers only vaguely that in the preceding three summers his wait was unsuccessful. When, finally, a female approaches, the curlew immediately starts his mating song, spiralling through the air, performing a courtship flight. As the female comes closer, the male curlew suddenly recognizes her as a Hudsonian curlew, a closely related species, and drives her away aggressively. By late July, the days grow shorter and the curlew instinctively feels an urge to fly south. Due to a strong longing for company, the Eskimo curlew joins a flock of Golden plovers on his 9000 miles migratory flight to South America. After having fed on grassy hillsides in Patagonia and Chile, a female Eskimo curlew finally arrives. Both have never seen birds of their own species before and together they start their journey to the Arctic tundra, which takes them through blizzards, heavy weather and long stretches of the Pacific Ocean. As the curlews reach the Canadian prairies, the male bird is filled with mating passion, when a loud bang suddenly pierces the air. Despite the male’s loud calls, the female moves no more, and the Eskimo curlew has to resume the flight alone. The lone survivor of the species does not know yet that his wait for a mating partner will be in vain.

6.2.6 Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Snowman cannot handle the heat even though he is sheltered from the sun. As he is slowly starving, he decides to return to the compounds, the gated communities where the rich and the privileged once lived, to find food and objects that help him survive. As he leaves the humanlike species called ‘Crakers’ behind, he reflects on his former life, when he was not the only person on the planet. His name was Jimmy and he grew up in compounds under strict surveillance, separated from the poor, the sick and criminals, who inhabited the cities, the so- called ‘pleeblands’. His scientifically talented friend Crake was one of the most successful scientists, who had always dreamt of a better world. Therefore, Crake invented a pill, which would improve human life, and he secretly created an advanced species, the Crakers. Too late, Jimmy realized Crake’s plan to wipe out all humans with his pills, so that only Jimmy and the new human-like, environmentally friendly species would survive to fulfil Crake’s vision of a better planet. Snowman feels completely isolated, the Crakers are unfamiliar with the human world that Jimmy grew up in, and additionally, the climate, the genetically modified animals and plants have become hostile to human life. When Snowman returns from his dangerous journey to the compounds, he is happily welcomed by the Crakers, who tell him of an encounter with three humans. Snowman, who has thought to be the only survivor of the human race, knows that he has to act quickly, and he slowly approaches the humans.

6.2.7 “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow” by Earnest T. Seton

The narrator, an avid observer of wildlife, relates the story of Silverspot, a crow that is wiser and stronger than all birds of his flock. Every year, the crows migrate between Toronto and the Niagara River, while being closely observed by the narrator. Silverspot, the leader, warns his flock of danger and his orders are obeyed by everyone. Silverspot has one weakness, which is collecting white and shiny objects, but as soon as the narrator finds these treasures, the old crow removes them from the nest and hides them somewhere else. Starting in June, the young ones are taught by strict Silverspot, until the flock is lead South in November. Crows only have one enemy, and in 1893, the narrator finds the remains of Silverspot, who was obviously killed by an owl. Even though the crows still come in spring, the number of individuals decreases and without their wise leader, they will all die soon.

6.2.8 “Do Seek Their Meat from God” by Charles G. D. Roberts

Fierce with hunger, two panthers are in search of prey. They are nearly starving as settlers move further into the ancient forest, chasing away the panthers’ game. As the panthers have to feed their cubs, they are suddenly full of hope when a child’s desperate cries fill the air. The terror in the child’s voice proves that it is alone. One of the settlers is touched by the heart-breaking cries in the distance and after first hesitation, he decides to save the child. As he arrives at the cabin, the settler sees the great beasts approaching and he shoots them just in time. The settler cannot believe his eyes when he finds his own son in the cabin. A few weeks later, he comes upon the remains of two dead panther cubs.

6.2.9 “Blessing Song” by Lee Maracle

The first-person narrator, her daughter and her granddaughter are whale watching at Puget Sound. Even though it is a very touristy attraction, the Salish women are filled with joy to be there. As more than a hundred killer whales appear, the Salish women can hear the songs of the whales. When the biggest whale approaches the boat, the captain is stunned, since this has never happened before. The Salish women, however, know that they have to sing to the killer whale, which they would normally never do in front of white people. After the end of the Salish song the whale swims back and the first-person narrator reflects on the connection between the Salish peoples, animals and nature. The gap between them is closed.

6.2.10 “Cedar Sings” by Lee Maracle

Cedar sings for the Squamish people near Whistler mountain. Raven reminds her that, nowadays, the people cannot hear her anymore, as they are distracted by new technologies such as TVs and stereos. Raven reminds Cedar of the clear cuttings and the ‘skinned mountains’ on the West Coast and Cedar starts to weep but the Indians do not hear her. Raven tells Cedar of a machine that was invented, an amplifier, which helps people to hear the sounds of plants. Raven and Cedar plan to steal the machine to wire it up to trees that should be logged, so that the people can finally hear their screams. Raven shifts shape to get the machine and wires it up to various forests, and suddenly the Indians take action. They protest and block the roads, until, in court, it is decided that the logging will stop until a solution will be found. Finally, Indians and

36 white people are negotiating. For Cedar, however, it is too late and when the next storm comes, she meets her fate.

6.2.11 “An Athabasca Story” by Warren Cariou

Cold and hungry, Elder Brother is aimlessly wandering through the woods, when he, all of a sudden, spots an enormous house, next to a stinking, empty land. Elder brother talks to a man in a ‘moving yellow house’ that digs into the earth, but Elder Brother does not understand what the man is saying. In addition to that, the stranger is not willing to share his ‘house’. Elder brother gets angry because the man even refuses to share the magical dirt, which could be burned to keep Elder Brother warm. As he tries to take as much of the ‘black, warm dirt’ as possible, Elder Brother gets stuck in the Athabasca Tar Sands. He cannot move and nobody hears him. Two days later, together with tons of tar sands he is processed in a refinery. Today, when you drive your car, you can still hear his knocking.

6.2.12 “The Tent” by Margaret Atwood

While you are in a paper tent, the outside world is ruled by howling wilderness and a deafening noise. You try to preserve the truth by writing on the walls of your paper tent, you try to protect your loved ones, to remember all that is dear to you but you have no chance. The ‘howlers’ approach, your only candle falls over and sets your tent on fire. You know it is pointless, but you never stop writing because “what else can you do?” (Atwood 2006: 146).

6.2.13 “Goodbye Snauq” by Lee Maracle

A teaching assistant, a descendent of the T’sleil Waututh Nation, is saddened by the fact, that the First Nations agreed to forfeit any claim of Snauq, their nation’s former village, for a compensation of 92 million dollars. Snauq is called Granville Island today and was home to First Nations before they were driven away by white people, who burned the Natives’ houses, destroyed the land, polluted False Creek, killed the animals, and poisoned the environment. The teaching assistant vividly remembers her admirable ancestors, such as, for instance, chief Khahtsahlano and his wife Swanamia, who were deprived of their identities and their home. 37

Due to their teacher’s suffering, the students suggest a trip to Snauq to say their proper goodbyes.

6.3 Methods to Create Empathy in Eco-Literature

As mentioned before, eco-literature’s success depends, to a large extent, on the creation of empathy in the readers. To achieve this, authors use different methods and various techniques to reach the audience emotionally, to spark a reaction. The methods might concern, for example, focalization, the play with language, anthropomorphism, the use of rhetorical devices, or the creation of imagery.

Regarding the structure of the following two chapters the two main organizing principles will be the affective depiction of ‘Animals’ on the one hand and the eco-fictional representation of ‘Pollution and Environmental Degradation’ on the other hand. Within these two larger chapters, various techniques concerning the creation of empathy in Canadian eco-literature will be discussed in separate subchapters. The overall aim thereby is to identify on the examples of the thirteen selected texts specific empathy-creating literary techniques and to demonstrate how they are used in these narratives to bring about affective ecologies.

7 Animals

Humans have always had a special connection with their pets and with animals in general. Especially teenagers and young adults spend hours on Facebook or other social media to watch animal videos. Never before have people fought as determinately for animals’ rights as they do today. Never before have hotel rooms been booked or beauty salon appointments been made for pets. People are crazy about ‘their’ animals. These days, people love their pets like their own children and sometimes the companionship of animals is even preferred to that of fellow people. Additionally, stories about animals have always touched people’s hearts. Whenever an animal is mistreated, some organization stands up immediately for its rights. Sometimes people even sympathize with animals more quickly than they do with people. Therefore, animals are often used as the main characters in literature and people have no trouble identifying with them.

According to Soper and Bradley, animals are often in the focus of Canadian environmental literature (cf. 2013: xxiii).

However, it should be pointed out that this, paradoxically, cannot automatically be interpreted as a sign that there is more awareness for the extinction of species today. There is also the other extreme: pigs fattened for slaughter; chicken crammed in battery farms; cruel animal experimentation; and human self-centredness and carelessness that has led to the extinction of numerous species. Janice Fiamengo stresses this paradox, the contradiction of the human- animal relationship: “animals, who are often both cherished family members and factory-raised and slaughtered food on the table – at times loved and wept over; at other times ignored” (Fiamengo 2007: 3).

According to Tønnessen and Tüür the representation of animals offers a clearer picture of who we are, providing information about cultural attitudes and beliefs:

In a cultural context, the manner in which we represent animals says a lot about who we are, or who we strive to be, and what we are conflicted about. Whether the animal is constructed as the radical other or someone with whom we can relate and feel kinship, describing animals in popular culture is often – if not always – a way to indirectly describe ourselves […] reflection on animal representations is, in the context of human understanding, ultimately self-reflection. (Tønnessen and Tüür 2014: 7)

When discussing Canadian animal stories in its ‘modern’ form, which first appeared in the late nineteenth century, two important nature writers who introduced and coined this field must be named: Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G.D. Roberts (cf. Gross 2020: 358). Up to their time, tragic heroes in literature had always been humans, or as Gross points out, “[s]ince antiquity the terms ‘tragic’ or ‘tragedy’ have been reserved for human experiences” (ibid.). Seton and Roberts, however, changed that when narrating the lives and events of their beloved animal protagonists, who became, all of a sudden, the tragic heroes in literature. The writers thus achieved that “the category of ‘tragic/tragedy’ was transferred for the first time to the realm of wild animals” (Gross 2020: 358f), which reflects a significant change in how animals were perceived. What rendered Roberts’ and Seton’s stories so successful, was that, on the one hand, they were based on careful study, and on the other hand, they offered insight into the animals’ personalities, feelings and thoughts. This is also confirmed by Gross, who emphasizes that their “work went beyond the purely scientific, as each [Roberts and Seton] in their specific way combined naturalist observation with the telling of the destinies of individual animals” (2020: 360).

7.1 Use of Paratext

One method to create empathy in animal stories is through the use of paratext. With this method, the reader is provided with additional information about the fictional world presented in the story. Not only does the paratext in animal stories help to clarify the reader’s initial confusion, but this additional knowledge also allows a better understanding of the protagonists’ actions and the story events, and results in the audience’s deeper immersion into the animal world.

In Barbara Gowdy’s The White Bone various forms of paratext can be found. Most of the paratext is provided before the beginning of the actual story, which serves, on the one hand, as introduction to the elephant world, and, on the other hand, as clarification of certain expressions and geographical information. Hence as means of elucidation. Firstly, a very detailed map of the African elephants’ domain is offered11. This map shows the area in the desert where the story takes place. The positions of major geographical points are clearly indicated with arrows and marks. Furthermore, places where the main story events take place are visible on the map and they are explained with comments, such as “Where Date Bed’s12 dung is found on 36th day of trek” (Gowdy 1998: viii) or “Scene of slaughter of the She-A’s-And-A’s13” (ibid.).

The following illustrations show parts of the geographical map:

Fig.1 Fig.2 Fig.3

The black-and-white map pictures the elephant domain in the African desert. As on any other geographical map, the scale and cardinal directions help with the orientation. Fig. 2 does not only indicate the names and positions of the places and offers drawings of the so-called ‘She-

11 The full map can be found in the appendix of this thesis. 12 Date Bed is an elephant calf, one of the protagonists of the story. 13 The elephants’ names will be explained later in this chapter. However, it should be mentioned that the ‘She- A’s-And-A’s’ is one of the central elephant families in Gowdy’s novel. 40

Hill’, of woodlands, different symbols and the course of the river, but also provides the reader with additional information. One example is ‘The Big Water’, which obviously represents a pond or a lake that only contains water during the wet season. To understand and decode all symbols on the map, a key is offered, as illustrated in Fig.3.

Secondly, family trees of the most important elephant families are provided. The following illustration represents Mud’s family tree; she is an elephant calf and the main protagonist of the story. As a newborn, she was adopted by the ‘She-S’s’ because her own family ‘The She-M’s’ had to abandon her due to the threat of approaching humans, when Mud was physically trapped and could not escape.

Fig. 4

The illustrations of these family trees – in total there are five family trees depicted – help the reader to immediately identify with the elephants. Not only are the readers introduced to all members of the central elephant families, but they are also offered a clear insight into the individual family relationships before the actual story begins. This allows the readers to dive into the animals’ lives immediately. Throughout the story we find out that the elephants are closely connected by family bonds, which renders the main story events, namely the brutal slaughter by ivory hunters, even more tragic14. Granting the elephants family trees and marking

14 This event will be discussed in detail in chapter 7.3. 41 the map with places that have significance for the elephants’ culture and history is a powerful technique to counter notions of animals as primitive or inferior.

Regarding the characters’ names, which might seem quite strange at first glance, the elephants follow an elaborate system. At a certain age the elephant bulls leave their families and roam freely through the desert. They ‘dig’ calf tunnels, whenever the females are in their ‘delirium’, a period which humans refer to as ‘oestrus’. The elephant cows, however, which outnumber the bulls, stay in their families for their whole lives. After they have been ‘dug’ for the first time, their names change, depending on the families they belong to. While all members of the ‘She- S’s’ receive names that start with the letter ‘S’, such as ‘She-Scares’ or ‘She-Swaggers’, the cows ‘She-Demands’ and ‘She-Doubts-And-Doubts’ represent members of the ‘She-D’s’. These names are chosen by older cows of the family and hint at traits or are characteristics of the individuals: while ‘She-Sees’ experiences visions, ‘She-Snorts’ is the fine ‘scenter’ of the family. The ‘She’ that occupies the first position of the names refers to the ‘mother’ and creator of all elephants (cf. Gowdy 1998: 19). The elephants refer to themselves as ‘she-ones’.

Furthermore, the The White Bone’s paratext contains a glossary with 87 terms and phrases that are commonly used in the elephant world. In order to understand that the focalizers refer to ‘insects’ when they speak of ‘specks’, for instance, the glossary’s word lists familiarize the readers with the elephant language. Most words describe plants, other animals or human objects, which the elephants have found their own terms for. Each word is followed by a definition.

The illustration below shows the first words in the glossary:

Fig. 5 42

Finally, Gowdy uses many footnotes to explain elephant-related events, specific words and general knowledge in the animal world. The focalizers in The White Bone are always elephants, and mostly the calf Mud’s point of view is offered. Due to this fact, the thoughts are not always immediately comprehensible to the readers. Therefore, the author provides us with further information in footnotes to clarify certain thoughts. As an example, one footnote explains that she-ones “weep silently and without tears. Sometimes they do so wilfully but more often ‘weeping to oneself’ is an involuntary reaction dictated by circumstances, such as the need for quiet” (Gowdy 1998: 10). Of course, having grown up in the elephant world, this is general knowledge for Mud. Hence, the focalizer does explain it, which is why the author provides the readers with this additional knowledge instead. Another example is a footnote that clarifies that all elephants always mumble ‘The She is nigh’ when “approaching or leaving a sacred place” (Gowdy 1998: 168). This helps the reader to envision the elephant world more clearly. All these paratextual devices contribute to an understanding of the elephant-universe as highly complex and implant in the reader the notion that animals – just like humans – are creatures with an intricate social system and are thus equally able to experience deep feelings – of joy and of grief alike.

7.2 Visual Elements

Another highly successful technique writers use in animal stories to spark empathy in their audience is by including visual elements. One advantage of this method is that readers are first affected by the information from the text, but as a second step, emotions are intensified by the illustrations and drawings that are integrated into the text. Visual elements accompany the words in a subtle way and contribute highly to the story’s success. In such cases, writers make use of the proverb ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ to underline the message that should be conveyed. Due to the written words in the text, the illustrations’ interpretation is guided.

One example of powerful illustrations that accompany the text can be found in Fred Bodsworth’s Last of the Curlews. Already the first edition, published in 1954, contained detailed drawings of Canadian artist and ornithologist Terence Michael Shortt. Bodsworth’s novel deals with the extinction of the Eskimo curlew, an extraordinary bird whose migratory flight led from the North America’s Arctic to the Antarctic tip of South America every year. This bird was referred to as “one of the continent’s most abundant game birds” (Bodworth

1963: 19), but human greed and overhunting had severe consequences. In March 1945, the last two Eskimo curlews were spotted on an island close to Texas, and after that, no more sightings have been reported; therefore, the species is now marked as ‘probably extinct’ (cf. Bodsworth 1963: xiii). As hinted at in the title Last of the Curlews, it is highly likely that Bodsworth restructured and fictionalized the story of these last two individuals of the species. The extinction of the Eskimo curlews, who appeared in such great numbers in the 1860s that some flocks “may have been a mile long and nearly as broad” (Bodsworth 1963: 48), reflects some of humanity’s most negative and repellent traits, such as self-centredness, malevolence and arrogance. In the introduction to Bodsworth’s novel this is pointedly summarized, “the wanton extermination of a whole species is an expression of human ugliness, a perverse preliminary to man’s own suicide” (Bodworth 1963: xiii).

In this work, empathy is created by emphasizing the human role in the extinction of a species. As pointedly stated in the introduction of the novel, humans are the only species that kill to the sheer enjoyment of killing: “for man alone among the larger predators kills when there is no need, kills for the love of killing” (Bodsworth 1963: vii). This message is conveyed repeatedly throughout the novel. The strong emotions sparked in the readers are increased by the drawings that accompany the text. At the beginning, the Eskimo curlew waits expectantly for a female to arrive. However, the Arctic summer comes to an end and while other birds form flocks to migrate south, the Eskimo curlew, unfortunately, still has not found a mate. In the following illustration the reader feels the curlew’s deep desire for companionship while watching the other species in their formations on their flight south.

Fig. 6

Eventually, the Eskimo curlew faces the arduous journey, joining golden plovers, birds of other species, on their perilous flight over the Atlantic and the high peaks of the Andes to finally reach the great plains of Argentina’s Patagonia. After a five-month migration, the shorebirds feed on rich food until the urge to return to the Arctic tundra calls them home. According to

Bodsworth, not many animals cover such long distances: “Of all the world’s living creatures, none but the similarly far-flying Arctic tern sees as much sunlight as the shorebirds which spend every year chasing, almost from pole to pole, the lands of the midnight sun” (Bodsworth 1963: 78).

Throughout the novel, the Eskimo curlew is in search of a female of his species. When she finally arrives, he instinctively knows that he has found a mate, despite the fact that he has “never seen a member of his own species before” (Bodsworth 1963: 84). The reader is touched by the moment of encounter that represents a sudden flicker of hope. The curlews have the opportunity to tackle the obstacles of migration together, and to breed. Even though the title of the novel already foreshadows that something terrible will happen, as the birds are referred to as ‘the last’ of the species, at this point of the story, there is nonetheless a spark of hope and some kind of positive energy, which is also visible in Shortt’s drawings:

Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9

The two birds seem grateful to have finally found a mating partner and display their love in courtship feedings and love dances that are aimed at impressing the other.

Throughout more than two thirds of the book, the male curlew appears to be the only individual of his species, until finally, a female arrives. A beautiful and noticeable detail in this novel is the structure of the book: the story time is perfectly reflected in the discourse time. This means that the duration of the story perfectly mirrors the length of the text devoted to it. The Eskimo curlew is alone almost all his life, except for a short period during his migratory flight north. The part where the female arrives and accompanies our protagonist, is narrated in only thirty pages, which pointedly emphasizes the short amount of time the birds spend together. In the remaining two thirds of the novel, the focus is on the male curlew’s solitude and his long, desperate wait.

When the Eskimo curlews are already close to the Arctic tundra, and they finally mate, they are so distracted in the mating process that they do not realize the mortal danger they are in. A man stops his tractor and runs to his gun. Despite the loud noise, the Eskimo curlews do not spot their ‘invisible’ enemy, but suddenly the female drops to the ground. The male calls out to her, but the female moves no more. When the female does not respond to the courtship feeding the next morning, the Eskimo curlew pursues his flight alone. Like in the preceding summer, he would wait for a female companion to arrive.

The following drawings trigger negative feelings in the readers. Helplessness, loneliness and death are depicted:

Fig. 10 Fig. 11

Figure 10 shows the Eskimo curlew on his flight to the Arctic tundra. The female was shot shortly before and he has to resume the flight alone. The illustration catches the Eskimo’s situation beautifully. On the right-hand side of the picture clouds, storm and rain are visible. This can be interpreted as the future that the Eskimo curlew will soon have to face. As the last survivor of his species, there is no possibility to procreate. The weather metaphorically represents the Eskimo curlews ‘cloudy’ and desperate future. The bird will never encounter another Eskimo curlew in his whole life.

In addition to the story, every other chapter is structured like a newspaper article, a book entry or an abstract of an essay. This allows Bodsworth, who had observed the Eskimo curlews for over 25 years in various Canadian regions, to include actual facts into the fictional story (cf. Bodsworth 1963: 126). The information in these chapters is always accompanied by the drawing in Fig. 11. While the reader is offered background information about the Eskimo curlew, such as in what numbers they appeared and why they were hunted, this illustration

46 summarizes human cruelty at its best. The two birds depicted represent the story’s Eskimo curlews, who could not escape their terrible fate. Despite the fact that the main protagonist’s future is not explicitly mentioned, the female’s death inevitably signifies the extinction of the whole species. It is highly likely, however, that the male Eskimo curlew will not survive his next migration. Individualizing the birds and foregrounding their affectionate relationship as well as their sorrow through evocative illustrations strongly invites the reader to empathize with these birds as if they were close fellow human beings.

Another author who used to include drawings in his stories was Earnest Thompson Seton. He was especially famous for his detailed animal drawings. In a review from 1899, in a journal called The American Naturalist, Seton was described as “naturalist and an animal artist of very high attainments, but [also as] master of a literary style that is at once graphic and fascinating” (‘J.A.A.’ 1899: online). Earnest Thompson Seton devoted many years to studying wildlife intensively to be able to represent wildlife as realistically as possible. In a review about Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known, in which also the story “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow” appeared, Seton’s devotion and ‘sympathetic love’ are praised: “doubtless much of the charm of the book is due to his sympathetic love of the wild animals he has come to know so intimately, and whose traits he is thus able to depict so successfully with both pen and brush” (ibid). To the writer, the animals are individual personalities, which is convincingly represented in his works.

Silverspot is the name of an old, wise crow that the narrator can distinguish due to a silvery white spot during years of observation. Silverspot’s band nests in the surroundings of Toronto and the narrator learns about Silverspot’s life, movements, routines and habits. The narrator eventually realizes that the birds have a well organized social system and their own language: “crows, though a little people, are of great wit, a race of birds with a language and a social system that is wonderfully human in many of its chief points, and in some is better carried out than our own” (Seton 1977: 51).

Following this realization, the narrator then learns to decode some of the commands that the leader Silverspot directs at his flock. These include warnings, such as ‘be on your guard’, reassurances like ‘all’s well, come right along’, or simple greetings, such as ‘good day’ (cf. Seton 1977: 51, 52, 54). In addition to the translation of the crows’ language, the commands

47 are also visually illustrated in the format of musical scores. The following is an example of such a drawing:

Fig. 12

One time, the crows are surprised by a hawk during their flight and Silverspot cries out the warning “[h]awk, hawk” (Seton 1977: 53), which is visually depicted in Fig. 12. The reader is provided with the sound ‘Caw’ that corresponds to the word ‘hawk’ in the crow’s language, and to describe the exact sound of this cry, even the musical scores are offered. It is fascinating how detailed this musical transcription is. The first note indicated is an E flat, which is identifiable due to the <♭> sign on the stave. All of these extraordinary details contribute to the story’s success. By literally seeing what the crows are saying, the readers are more deeply involved in the animals’ world. Silverspot becomes a ‘friend’, who we understand and identify with. Depicting the birds’ sounds in the language of musical scores links them to a highly cultivated system that equals that of the human species.

The following illustration represents “Great danger – a gun” (ibid.).

Fig. 13

Another time, the narrator tries to scare the flock with a wooden stick but the crows see right through the deceit. Therefore, the next day, the narrator wants to test the birds and arms himself with a real gun. Silverspot immediately assesses the threat correctly and cries out the warning, as shown in Fig.13.

To highlight the intelligence of the birds and their well-established language system, the narrator emphasizes that some sound sequences can even be combined, to form a command with a new meaning. The notes on Fig. 14, for example, mean “wheel around” (Seton 1977: 54).

Fig. 14

It is a slight alteration and combination of the root idea of ‘danger’ and ‘retreat’ which were represented in Fig. 12 and Fig 13. respectively (cf. ibid.).

The illustrations in the story support the peculiarity of Silverspot and his individual personality. After the introduction to the crows’ domain and the visual representation of their language, it is not difficult to identify with the protagonist. The reader learns to love the wise leader Silverspot and considers him a friend. Hence, the old crow’s death, which is caused by a highly feared predator, an owl, sparks sympathy in the emotionally attached audience.

7.3 Anthropomorphism and Anti-Anthropomorphism

“Writing about animals poses a challenge distinct from writing about places, ecosystems, landscapes or pollution” (Clark 2011: 179). Timothy Clark pointedly addresses the precarious issue about writing animal stories, because as he puts it, “[the] world [is] usually understood according to our own scale, dimensions, interests and desires” (2011: 192). Hence, one difficulty always remains: “[h]ow to represent animal lives in human language and culture without illusion or injustice?” (Clark 2011: 179). However, many times anthropomorphism is deliberately aimed at in such stories. In the following subchapters the importance of both anthropomorphism and anti-anthropomorphism are analysed.

7.3.1 Anthropomorphism

One of the most powerful methods when it comes to creating empathy in animal stories is through ‘anthropomorphism’. This term, when looked up in the Oxford Online Dictionary, is defined as “the practice of treating gods, animals or objects as if they had human qualities” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary: online). Timothy Clark suggests that “anthropomorphism could mean the undue ascription of human qualities to a non-human animal, for example” (2011: 192). Ascribing human traits to animals in storytelling has been applied for a long time.

Anthropomorphism helps readers to identify with objects and non-human characters more easily. A description with human attributes facilitates comprehension, as it is difficult to imagine something that we cannot relate to. Sadness, anger, disappointment and other feelings, for example, have been experienced by every human and are therefore much easier to understand.

With regard to the texts analysed in this thesis, the first example of an anthropomorphic depiction of animals is Earnest Thompson Seton’s “Silverspot”. Seton observed wildlife for a very long time and became an expert with broad knowledge in this field. He understood animals better than most and had a special relationship with them. According to a review in The American Naturalist, Seton himself had claimed that “animals are creatures with wants and feelings differing in degree only from our own” (‘J.A.A.’ 1899: online). He also believed that “[m]an has nothing that the animals have not at least a vestige of; the animals have nothing that man does not in some degree share” (ibid.). These statements prove that Seton perceived animals to be very similar to people, as autonomous individuals. It is emphasized that through Seton’s individual treatment of his animal protagonists, “we get a deeper insight into the life history of the species“ (ibid). As Seton saw animals with their own personalities, it is no wonder that he often ascribed them character traits and human behaviour.

As typical sign of anthropomorphism in Seton’s “Silverspot” the eponymous crow is always referred to with the personal ponoun ‘he’, as humans normally are. With phrases like ‘he knows’ or ‘he realizes’, the author makes the animal the cognitive agent. Silverspot, the wise leader of his flock, shouts “orders to his band” (Seton 1977: 51) and does not ‘like’ to be carefully watched by the narrator. The narrator also speaks of a “long acquaintance” (Seton 1977: 54) with the bird, which signifies a certain familiarity and intimacy between them. The term ‘acquaintance’ also implies that the two ‘know each other’ and this immediately excludes the aspect of superiority or dominance between the two characters. Furthermore, the crows fly on ‘honeymoon’, fold their wings ‘neatly’, have the ability to count and are able to ‘become jolly’ (cf. Seton 1977: 62f).

One aspect that the reader can immediately relate to is Silverspot’s hobby: he is a collector of shells and all white and shining objects. Despite the crow’s carefulness, the narrator once spots the objects, which makes Silverspot remove and hide them at once. The attribution of a hobby to an animal is a highly anthropomorphic representation of Silverspot. It is even considered his

50 weakness and is beautifully described in the text: “This was his hobby, his weakness. He [Silverspot] could not have explained why he enjoyed them [white, shiny objects], any more than a boy can explain why he collects postage-stamps, or a girl why she prefers pearls to rubies” (Seton 1977: 58). The bird’s action is compared to human action, both are put on the same level.

Furthermore, Silverspot is claimed to be a “crow of the world” and is ascribed adjectives such as ‘witty’ and ‘successful’. He plays cruel tricks on birds of other species and is considered an ‘excellent’ teacher. Also, in Silverspot’s flock the young birds are treated like children, they “do not enjoy the punishment and nagging they get so soon after they have been mamma’s own darlings” (Seton 1977: 61). This sentence triggers the reader’s own memories, it is a reminder of their own childhood.

Finally, the passage of Silverspot’s death is very touching. The narrator’s rendering of this event suggests the loss of a friend. It is portrayed as a crime scene, with black feathers on the snow that remind us of the victim’s final struggle. However, the fight was lost to an owl, who is mentioned to be the ‘murderer’. Silverspot’s story is described like the biography of a famous person, which facilitates our relating to it. The animal becomes our hero and whenever something bad happens to the crow we suffer with it.

A second example that effectively draws on anthropomorphism is Barbara Gowdy’s The White Bone. This novel focusses on the horrible fate of African elephants. Not only is the endangered species under constant threat of slaughter by poachers, who illegally trade with ivory and have reduced the population significantly over the past forty years, but the African elephant also faces the loss of habitat due to the consequences of climate change and due to human expansion (cf. World Wide Fund for Nature: online). Within one century, the number of African elephants was reduced from 3-5 million individuals to 415.000 (cf. ibid.). Despite national and international urges of more severe protection and a ban in trade, African elephants, which represent today’s largest land animals, continue to be poached for their skin, their meat and ivory in enormous numbers; especially in China objects of ivory are in great demand (cf. ibid.).

In The White Bone, the reader is introduced to the African elephant world through the eyes of Mud, an elephant calf. This world is full of wonders, tragic events and detailed descriptions. Through Mud we are familiarized with the fate of various elephant families who face brutal slaughter, caused by monsters who turn out to be humans. Above all, however, this story is so

51 powerful due to the detailed background information we receive. Small details convince the reader of the elephants’ realistic world and increase the empathetic response whenever terrible events happen to them. As visible on the cover page of the novel, Alice Munro praises these details in Gowdy’s novel, “[a] marvel of a book…The language, social structure, intellectual and spiritual world of elephants are as real as the fabric of human life. Absolutely compelling” (Gowdy 1998: cover page).

Gowdy’s elephants seem very human as they are given a past and a history. They are social beings with a well-developed social system. As mentioned earlier, all individuals belong to families, where reciprocal help and support are guaranteed. The older elephants feed their calves and take care of them like humans would with their babies. As pointed out earlier, thanks to the family trees in the paratext we have the feeling that we know Mud’s family members and throughout the story the importance of the strong bonds in elephant families is highlighted. At Mud’s birth, her mother dies and due to approaching poachers her own family has to abandon the newborn. However, Mud is later found and adopted into another family and this act of welcoming and helping an abandoned ‘baby’ is the first sign of the elephants’ goodheartedness.

Another sign of anthropomorphism is in the elephants’ past and history. The stories are passed on from generation to generation and as the she-ones never forget anything, they learn from their past to make wise decisions in the future. The fact that the animals have a long history is woven into the story by sentences such as “[i]n the old songs and poems it is called The Place, or The Island. The Domain, everyone says these days and has said for hundreds of years” (Gowdy 1998: 6). The past is remembered in legends that have been passed on, or in memories of the oldest matriarchs. In one such legend, the genesis of the human race is logically explained15. The first humans were elephants whose bodies shrank in punishment for breaking the most important law. Furthermore, the reader is introduced to ancient poetry and songs that

15 The following is the legend of humans as known to all elephants: “There have been humans since the Descent, which took place ten thousand years ago, during the first long drought, when a starving bull and cow killed and ate a gazelle and in doing so broke the first and most sacred law: ‘You shall eat no creature, living or dead.’ Even before the two miscreants had finished their meal they began to shrink. As their bodies grew smaller and thinner, their trunks receded to stubs, their ears contracted and fur sprouted on top of their heads. They rose up on their hind legs to protest but only a weak howl came from their throats. Furious and defiant they declared themselves carnivores, free to prey on any creature who did not walk upright (as they, in their ceaseless rage, now did)” (Gowdy 1998: 7). 52 are sung while mourning and in situations of uncertainty. The verses and lyrics reveal information on the elephants’ past as well.

Furthermore, the she-ones follow traditions. All cows are renamed after their first sexual contact, which is described in the novel as ‘digging the calf tunnel’. The naming is celebrated in a ceremony, which reminds us of baptism, and represents a significant event in a cow’s life. The older family members always discuss the future name carefully, but Mud, who becomes ‘She-Spurns’ does not like hers. Additionally, mourning the dead is another custom in Gowdy’s animal world. It can be compared to a funeral in the human world. When a bull once interrupts such mourning by accident, he is mortified, which proves the importance of the act.

Gowdy’s elephants are represented in all facets. They can be filled with regret or worry, feel humiliated, curse, persuade others, scream, remember, and relive situations in their minds, as for example Mud does after the butchery of her family. She cannot forget the terrible scenes she had to watch, and memories of the slaughter haunt her everywhere. Another characteristic of Gowdy’s protagonists is that they are considerate. Date Bed does not reveal to the eagle that he sees his own reflection in the mirror and not his ‘spirit twin’ as he mistakenly believes. She does not want to ‘disappoint’ him and keeps the truth to herself. Furthermore, elephants are capable of irony, which can be observed in the scene when a cow is attacked by a human: “’I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure!’ She-Sees trumpets, extending her trunk in the greeting gesture” (Gowdy 1999: 89). In addition to that, the she-ones try to think logically and are able to use their imagination as Date Bed often does when she is separated from her family. She asks herself many rhetorical questions and imagines what the others are doing. Where would they go if they were in her situation?

Many anthropomorphic elements are hidden in rhetorical devices. The animals are quite sentimental beings. Whenever a member of the family or a member of any other elephant family is lost, all individuals pay their respects. Like humans they weep and feel with others. The following passage shows personifications and a metaphor: “[it] may start them weeping. To a degree that we would call maudlin they are sentimental; even the big bulls are. Any kind of loss or yearning breaks their hearts” (Gowdy 1998: 2). She-ones pity fellow individuals and they are moved by sad events.

According to Dan Wylie the author follows a certain strategy in her novel:

Gowdy’s strategy is, firstly, to depict an elephant society as complex and wonderful as the human, in order to have it accorded equal respect. Secondly, she relates with shocking and graphic economy the depredations of ivory-hunters: the novel is almost unremittingly a series of such massacres, with barely a hint of hope at the close. (Dan Wylie 2002: 123)

By being offered their ‘whole’ story, we identify with the animals; they have neighbours, children and friends like people do. All this background information makes the killing of the elephants even more brutal. It almost seems like people are killed. The slaughter of the baby elephants, described in all its brutality, is a heart-breaking scene for the reader. Murdering the most fragile animals, which already have their own distinct personality and are also referred to with the pronouns ‘he’ or ‘she’, wakes a sort of maternal instinct in the reader. A strong wish to protect them is sparked. As we know what the elephants think and decide, it seems to the reader that they have more human features than the real humans in the story. The poachers, who are portrayed from the animal perspective, are often described as inhuman monsters, to whom slaughter seems almost pleasing. In the tragic climax of the story, the majority of Mud’s beloved family members are slain. Two people jump off a vehicle, open fire and hit as many elephants as they can. The reader quickly develops a certain hatred against humans, who kill – among others – the newborn twins of the She-M’s. There is a crucial difference between the pained screams of the dying animals and the cheering screams of the excited ‘monsters’: “Her [a newborn’s] brief bird-like screams alternate with her sister’s quivering screams, and the human riding her kicks and whoops and holds one hand high. The other human howls” (Gowdy 1998: 87).

The visual depiction of the animals’ suffering is very disturbing. We see images of tortured animals whose tusks are cut off with a chain saw, and dead elephant bodies which drop heavily to the ground. The bloodied tusks are collected, which causes even more pain and sorrow for the spiritual elephants: “the saw slices off the front of She-Demands’ head in time it would take Mud to bite through a stick […] ‘Monster!’ Mud trumpets, for this is the real atrocity. Without at least one tusk attached to her skull, even the great She-Demands cannot ascend to the sky herd of the She“ (Gowdy 1998: 88). The elephants are not only brutally murdered but also robbed of their final salvation. Without the tusks attached, the elephants cannot reach heaven to take part in the herd of their ancestors: “Sky cows are dead cows who have ascended to the sky to join the family of the She. A star is the shine of a sky cow’s tusk” (Gowdy 1998: 31). As readers, we feel how important the ascension to the She would be. Without heaven, there is no afterlife of the spirits. Mud is devastated as “tuskless cows will never know even a second of paradise” (Gowdy 1998: 32).

Another sad moment is described when Mud tries to communicate with her family members and the reader believes for a short time that she must be the only survivor of her family: “As she walks she sends infrasonic alarms to each member of her family who may still be alive, but gets no response. If there are signs of her own kind here, she cannot locate them.” (Gowdy 1998: 90). The elephants are able to communicate via infrasonic rumbles, but after the terrible murder, of which the fewest could escape, Mud is not able to get in touch with any of her family members.

An interesting idea is the concept of nurse cows who try to cure family members that are hurt. They use various ingredients to mix their own medicine, and relate on their ancient knowledge when treating wounds, “[a] poultice is required, made either from warthog urine and fever-tree bark (similar to the one She-Soothes applied to Hail Stone’s foot) or from hyena dung and fever- tree bark. There are only these two remedies for bullet wounds, as every nurse cow knows” (Gowdy 1998: 107).

Elephants are extremely superstitious, they read and interpret signs, on which important decisions depend. What they believe most in, is the legend of the ‘white bone’, or the ‘white prize’, as they call it, as it loses power every time its name is spoken aloud. One day, when darkness fills the evil-spirited humans, they brutally murder numerous elephant families and burn all remains. However, a newborn’s rib is somehow overlooked and it develops the power to indicate the direction to the so-called ‘Safe Place’, a permanent green, safe paradise, where all animals can live in peace, unreachable for evil humans and protected from hunger. The sacred rib would appear in the darkest of times and when thrown in the air by an elephant, it would point to the direction of salvation. As suddenly as it would appear, it would also vanish again. The legend of the white bone is remembered and known by all elephants and due to all slaughter and the terrible drought that tortures the animals, the white bone appears and all elephants look for it. Luckily, it is found and thrown by Date Bed, but unfortunately, almost all she-ones are killed before the Safe Place is found. At the end of the story, many elephant families are wiped out completely, and in Mud’s family only three cows, one calf and Mud’s newborn have survived, but the ‘Safe Place’ is still not reached. Mud, who is able to see the future in visions, sees various animals in lush, green grass, but, unfortunately, she does not recognize any of the other she-ones, which implies that all members of other known she- families must have died. The small spark of hope of this last vision, however, is overshadowed by the fact that Mud spots a human nearby, who seems to observe the animals with an amused

55 grin on his lips. Maybe the animals will not be as well-protected as they think, but at this point, Mud’s vision and the story end.

Gowdy’s novel brings the topic of species annihilation closer to the readers. As they are immersed into the story, they have no difficulty to imagine the events that happen to Mud and her family members. Readers empathize with the she-ones, who are portrayed as fellow creatures with an equally complex social system, so that what remains is the wish to protect the African elephant.

7.3.2 Anti-Anthropomorphism

When discussing works of Roberts, Seton, Gowdy and Bodsworth it should be mentioned that these writers spent an enormous amount of time with wildlife observation to render their stories as realistically and as truthfully as possible. Of course, they produced works of fiction and thus invented events that happen to their animal protagonists. However, the behaviour of these fictional characters is based on extensive research. To offer one example, it is scientifically proven that elephants really moan their dead, they can die of ‘broken hearts’, they smell if someone is in oestrus and cows form herds, while the bulls roam alone in wilderness. All of these aspects are considered in Gowdy’s story.

To stick with the analysis of The White Bone, while Gowdy uses anthropomorphism in her story, her work’s success is equally ascribed to her deliberate use of anti-anthropomorphic elements. With this narrative technique the reader dives deeply into the elephant world. As highlighted in the glossary at the beginning of the novel, Gowdy uses the language and point of view of the she-ones when referring to objects from the human world. Examples are all kinds of cars, for instance, as they do not exist in the animal kingdom. The she-ones believe vehicles, who leave ‘tracks’ just like them, to be fellow animals, even though they do not understand their ‘language’. Right before the humans attack the elephants in the swamp, Mud thinks that, “[t]here is a good chance that the vehicle isn’t headed directly here – vehicles don’t drink at the watering places” (Gowdy 1998: 84). Experience has taught such knowledge and the elephants rely on former memories to know that their real enemies are not the vehicles themselves, “but the humans riding in their bellies. On their own, vehicles prefer to sleep, but whenever a human burrows inside them, they race and roar and discharge foul odour” (Gowdy 1998: 85).

Further, also the strange species of ‘roar flies’ has thoroughly been observed: “[t]here are two breeds of plane: the small plump breed, which has a single twirling wing on its skull, and this breed, with its stiff wings that never flap or fold and its smooth featherless skins” (Gowdy 1998: 56). Gowdy could not have found a better mode to describe planes from the elephants’ perspective.

One time, Date Bed finds a car mirror. She obviously has never seen such an object in her own world and tries to make sense of it. She realizes that it must have belonged to the vehicle and assumes it to be its gall or bone: “its curved side was the unnatural blue of a vehicle’s skin and she realized that it must have been […] a kind of gall perhaps or extrusion of bone” (Gowdy 1998: 165).

Additionally, also humans are described with adjectives of the animal world. When humans attack the elephants at the water hole, Mud uses the only language she knows, and compares humans to other species: “[w]ith hyena-like yells the humans gallop into the swamp” (Gowdy 1998: 86). Date Bed orders the eagles to bring her pieces of ‘human skin’ as pieces of clothing are referred to. This phenomenon occurs also when she-ones talk about animals, such as for example snakes (‘flow-sticks’), crocodiles (‘jaw-logs’), or hawks (‘sky-divers’).

Again, I would like to emphasize that despite the perception from the animal perspective, we cannot eliminate human influence completely, as we depend on human language systems to relate stories. Gross explains this concisely: “[t]o construct an animal perspective in fiction one has to use human language, which – as the tool of our thought processes – imprisons us in anthropocentrism“ (2020: 362). Scholar Mark Cladis confirms the human influence in animal stories more radically by claiming that “humans tend to cast everything – even other humans – in their own image” (2000: 207), and he shares the view that all animal stories are to some point anthropomorphic: “[g]iven that all human representations project a human measure of some sort, it soon becomes debatable where ‘anthropomorphism’ stops” (2011: 192).

In the introductory words to Last of the Curlews, it is highlighted that Bodsworth tries to refrain from anthropomorphism in the novel. Nonetheless, some critics claim that the bird’s suffering is rendered in a too ‘humanized’ way. This, however, is justified in John Stevens’ introduction to the novel:

[some passages] may be too great a leap into reasoning for some of the author’s fellow naturalists, but somehow he [Bodsworth] must suggest the curlew’s dim awareness of his 57

suffering […] By persuading us to accept that the curlew recognizes his loneliness and isolation Bodsworth can make the necessary emotional bond between the curlew and the reader, for it is some form of loneliness and isolation that is the human tragic experience. And perhaps this degree of ‘humanizing’ the bird is a necessary concession to the limitations of the human mind. After all we can only imagine the minds of creatures in human terms. (Bodsworth 1963: xii)

Throughout Bodsworth’s novel anti-anthropomorphic passages can be found. For example, it is emphasized that the protagonist cannot ‘know’ certain details. The curlew is a bird and his behaviour is therefore explained by a sudden urge, an inner feeling or by instincts. Such passages can be found in the following sentences: “The curlew didn’t know that winter was coming again to the Arctic and that insect eaters must starve if they remained. He knew only that once again an irresistible inner force was pressing him to move” (Bodsworth 1963: 35); “The curlew […] felt a pressing desire for companionship” (Bodsworth 1963: 34); and “[i]nstinct, not reasoning, told them […]” (Bodsworth 1963: 112). This bird’s inability of logical thinking and emotional attachment is the reason why the passage where the curlew leaves the dead female is told in a rather emotionless way. The curlew simply follows his urge to migrate north and presumes his flight alone.

Finally, Sid Marty’s novel The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek contains many passages that could be analysed at this point of the thesis, but as the writer uses anti-anthropomorphic elements to assure a more powerful and reliable first-person narration, the novel will be discussed in the following subchapter.

7.4 Narrative Perspectives

“[N]arrative theory suggests that an internal perspective best promotes character identification and readers’ empathy. [This is] [a]chieved through first-person self-narration, figural narration […] or authorial narration” (Keen 2007: 96). Thus, the narrative situation in a text contributes greatly to the readers emotional involvement in the story. Weik von Mossner points out that rendering the point of view of a non-human protagonist is ‘tricky’ as whole plots that include “thoughts, emotions, motivations, and goals” (2017: 126) have to be invented.

Literature offers a great opportunity for the marginalized to get a voice, since in fiction, they can be allowed to tell the story from their point of view. In eco-literature, the marginalized are often not humans but animals, plants or trees. When we read a text passage in which a tree is

58 logged by a human, we do not spare a thought for it; if we read the same story from the point of view of the tree, however, suddenly the human becomes the monster and we suffer with the victim, judging the injustice that is happening. The author has the power to control who the readers sympathize with. It depends on whose point of view, whose inner feelings and thoughts we are offered.

7.4.1 First-person Narration

Suzanne Keen is convinced that “first-person fiction more readily evokes feeling responsiveness than the whole variety of third-person narrative situations” (2010: 71). This belief is shared by Sid Marty, who includes bears’ perspectives in his novel The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek, in order to transmit his message in more powerful way. His novel sheds light on the bear attacks that happened in 1980 in Banff National Park, Alberta. As Marty worked as a journalist, park warden and bear expert, his first-hand experience of the attacks provided him with a broad knowledge of the situation. At the end of August and the beginning of September, within ten days, four humans were hurt in bear maulings. One victim even died of the consequences of their severe injuries. After having conducted extensive research and numerous interviews, Marty recounts the tragic events in his novel, by including chapters from the bears’ point of view. As most people immediately judge the bears as antagonists in bear attacks, Marty tries to put himself into the bear’s shoes to provide the animals’ perspective. He questions the bears’ fault in the maulings and despite expressing condolences for the victims, he believes that with correct human behaviour, in terms of proper garbage management, respect for nature and stricter laws in national parks, the accidents could have been avoided. Melanie Braunecker suggests in her thesis that “Marty’s occasional comments seem to reveal that at heart, his sympathy belongs to the wild and thus to the bears” (2013: 72). Marty highly respects bear populations and considers them an intelligent species, as discernable in the author’s note of the novel, “[i]n 1980 we thought we knew something about bears, but the bears in Whiskey Creek eluded us, outwitted us, and humbled us for a while” (Marty 2008: author’s note).

The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek is such a successful novel due to its powerful narrative situation. Marty combines chapters of his personal account of the happenings with first-person narrations of a black bear and a grizzly bear. The chapters relevant for this analysis are the ones narrated by the bears. Of course, Marty had to imagine the bears’ side of the story, but due to

59 scientific knowledge and extensive research on bear behaviour, he provides the reader with faithful and reasonable explanations. His intentions are declared in the author’s note:

I have tried to tell part of the story from a bear’s point of view. This is obviously an imaginative exercise, rather than a reportage […] No one can say with any certainty what goes on in the mind of a bear (hell, on some days, some of us barely know what goes on in our own minds), but I, for one, never get tired of wondering what the answer to that question might be. So here goes my best guess. (Marty 2008: author’s note)

The passages told by the bears help readers to understand the bears’ behaviour. Instead of aggressively attacking humans, we realize that the animals feel threatened and act out of ‘self- protection’. In one case the grizzly is suddenly woken by humans and has no more chance to escape. The humans surprise him as the wind carries their sounds and scents in the opposite direction. Another time, humans simply approach the bear’s hideout too closely. The grizzly, or ‘Sticky Mouth’ as the grizzly refers to itself, is driven to the human settlements by hunger. In the year of 1980, the berry crop failed, so the hungry bears are obviously attracted to garbage bins filled with fish remnants and other delicious human food scraps. If there is no other food source available, why not feed on the rich human food that is so easily accessible and exists in abundant quantities? Throughout the novel, Marty criticizes the lack of initiatives to bear proof garbage bins in Banff National Park. Everyone was responsible for the poor storage of food scraps: careless tourists, hotels and even official facilities run by Parks Canada, a governmental agency, which chose the lazier option of food disposal by contributing to wildlife’s feast. It took the death of many bears and the maulings in the summer of 1980 to finally introduce stricter laws regarding food disposal in Canadian National Parks.

To render the bears’ perspectives more powerful, Marty had to consider various aspects. Firstly, anti-anthropomorphic elements assure a convincing first-person narration. If the story is accounted from the bear’s perspective, names for human objects, which bears cannot possibly know, have to be invented. As in Gowdy’s story, helicopters are unknown to the animals, and are therefore described in defamiliarized manner: “[t]he noise was made by a monstrous, long- tailed insect; a roaring, whop-whop noise instead of a buzz” (Marty 2008: 78). Furthermore, also the train is perceived as an animal, as “great broken-back snake that often roared through” (Marty 2008: 221). It also leaves some sort of ‘silver tracks’; a lamp, according to Sticky Mouth, is a “mystic light that is neither moon or sun” (Marty 2008: 221); and humans are called ‘Twolegs’ or “beasts without fur that went on two legs” (Marty 2008: 92). Whenever the Twolegs carry a gun, which Sticky Mouth smells immediately, he recognizes the weapon as ‘burning stick’. Another anti-anthropomorphic and thus defamiliarizing passage occurs when 60 the grizzly observes a human touching his head injury, which Sticky Mouth accounts with the following words: “[o]n its knees it claws at its head and moans, stares down at its red paws” (Marty 2008: 240).

In one of the bear maulings one of the humans screams when spotting the approaching grizzly. Marty suggests that the bear probably interpreted this scream as a form of danger, “one had opened his mouth and shown his teeth; the bear had seen this one as a threat” (ibid.). After the attacks Sticky Mouth often feels confused: there are even more people who disturb him. They are the park wardens and hunters who – following orders from Ottowa – have to kill the bear that is responsible for the maulings. The narrator points out, “[w]ere he [Sticky Mouth] able to wonder about any motive, other than hunger, he might have wondered why they would not leave him be” (Marty 2008: 196).

Secondly, a fantastic detail in Marty’s novel that contributes to the plausibility of narrative perspectives is the use of the pronoun ‘it’. Whenever the reader is offered the humans’ point of view, as in dialogues of park wardens for example, ‘it’ denotes the grizzly or other bears. When the story is recounted by Sticky Mouth, however, ‘it’ always refers to a human. Thus, the use of this pronoun alone already reveals the antagonist in the passage. Furthermore, when Sid Marty himself refers to the grizzly, often the pronoun ‘he’ is used. This hints at the writer’s perception of the roles of protagonist and antagonist in the story. For Marty, the shooting of bears is tragic, and he emphasizes the hope that his novel “will help in some way to prevent such tragedies happening in the future” (Marty 2008: 7). It is very likely that in this statement Marty considers Sticky Mouth’s death as the tragedy, rather than that of the human victims. Marty defends the bears which is why he often uses the pronoun ‘he’ for the animals.

A third aspect that helps the readers identify with the bears, is the addition of B054’s story. This individual black bear was marked with the identification ‘B054’ on his upper lip. The reader is familiarized with another custom in Banff National Park. B054 was tattooed when he was moved for the first time. If bears dwell too close to civilization and cause some sort of ‘trouble’, they are tranquillized and flown to remote areas, where they are released again. However, these bears often find their way back quickly, as “[b]ears and garbage go together like junkies and heroin” (Marty 2008: 29). According to the motto “three strikes and you’re out” (Marty 2008: 46), after the third trouble with humans, these bears are donated to parks and zoos, or, in most cases, they are simply eliminated. This is not only sad but also affects the bear population in

Canada, as there are already few bears left to procreate. Bear B054 remembers when “the naked bears had entrapped him” (Marty 2008: 92), hurt him, until he suddenly could not feel his legs anymore, and when he woke up the next moment, he felt completely disoriented.

I would like to add a special passage which increases the reader’s empathy for bears. One park warden is rather disturbed when he has to kill the grizzly: “He was not taking the bear for food or medicine, like a true hunter of old; he was there to punish it for defending its home against incursions. He was there, in essence, to punish the bear for being a bear” (Marty 2008: 255). It is a beautiful and reassuring thought that not all humans are monsters that blindly follow orders.

7.4.2 Third-person Narration

Most authors of environmental animal fiction have chosen a third-person narration for their works. One reason for that might be that “third person narration draws attention to the fact that some perceptual, cognitive, and emotional differences between human writer and nonhuman protagonist remain intractable, untranslatable” (Wylie 2002: 122). However, it is essential with third-person narration, to distinguish between a heterodiegetic authorial voice and a focalizer which creates the illusion of showing the event from a character’s point of view and is typical of figural narration. While many animal stories, such as Seton’s “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow”, are told from the point of view of humans (authorial narration), Gowdy takes out the human perspective completely (figural narration). The animals are not just described, but they are the focalizers themselves. One of the main focalizers is Mud, a young elephant. The fact that we only know what the elephants know and only feel what they feel, renders the story authentic. Mossner confirms that “The White Bone aligns readers with the animals’ insider perspective” (2017: 127), which leads to the reader’s immersion into the elephant world. Therefore, “[t]his extraordinary novel is utterly believable” (Gowdy 1998: cover page).

Furthermore, I would like to discuss the impact of the narrative situation in Charles G.D. Roberts’ story. Like Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles G.D. Roberts, too, published numerous successful animal stories, among which “Do Seek Their Meat from God”, written in 1892, has reached a broad audience. “Roberts, like Seton, initiated a change in animal fiction by presenting animals not just as objects, but as subjects and by trying to capture an animal perspective” (Gross 2020: 362). According to Fiamengo, Roberts “sought to depict them [animals] as sentient and even rational” (cf. 2007: 2). Again, animals assume the role of ‘tragic’ 62 characters, and as stressed by Gross, Roberts perceives ‘tragedy’ in two ways: “first in the sense of the fundamentally tragic state of things in nature, and second in the sense of recognition that humans in their dealings with wild animals play fate turning them into victims” (Gross 2020: 359). Both understandings are true for our story.

In “Do Seek Their Meat from God”, authorial narration is used. The reader is provided with two perspectives: the one of the starving panthers and the one of the human settlers, a father and his son. The advantage of this thrilling narration is that until the climax of the story, which is the tragic death of the panther parents, the readers do not know who the victim is and who the perpetrator. In animal stories, the roles of the characters are normally clear from the beginning or are at least quickly evident. In Roberts’ story, however, the reader learns both points of view and does not know which party to root for. Both sides can be sympathized with, which makes the reader feel torn: on the one hand, the human settler would lose his son, and on the other hand, the animals have to die. Had Roberts only offered one perspective, we would immediately have sided with one party and judged the enemy – had it been the panthers or the humans. By showing both views, however, the feelings, thoughts and backstories of all characters are known, and Roberts has found a powerful and thought-provoking way to cause a moral dilemma.

From the beginning of the story, the reader suffers with the hungry panther parents. Powerful phrases such as “sharp hunger”, “the panthers were fierce with hunger” or “hunger, now grown savage” (Roberts 1970: 2) make even the readers yearn for food. Human settlements and roads have been destroying the ancient forest, chasing away the panthers’ game. Even the descriptions of the hostile environment hint at the harsh living conditions: “bossed with great rocky projections and harsh with stunted junipers” (Roberts 1970: 1). The panthers, however, do not only fight for their own survival, but they know that they are responsible for their two small panther cubs, “for had she not those small blind cubs at home to nourish, who soon must suffer at any lack of hers” (Roberts 1970: 2). In this passage, the reader is provided with traces of figural narration in form of free indirect discourse. When the desperate cry of a lonely human child fills the air, a sudden spark of hope flares up and the panthers spurt towards it, they are “fired with fierce hope. Soon would they break their bitter fast” (ibid.). At the same time, the story of a scared child who finds itself alone in a remote cabin in the woods is told. A settler, the child’s father as we find out later, yearns to return home but these terror-filled cries change his mind. Just as the panthers try to enter the cabin, the settler appears and shoots the ‘beasts’.

To his shock, he comes upon his own son in the cabin. He is immediately filled with relief and gratefulness. A very sad moment is the discovery of the decaying carcasses of the panther cubs16.

As is typical of authorial narration, the narrator guides the reader with his thoughts and comments. When the panthers arrive at the cabin, they seem deadly, wild beasts but the narrator immediately clarifies and mitigates by emphasizing that “[i]t would be thoughtless superstition to say the beasts were cruel. They were simply keen with hunger and alive with the eager passion of the chase” (Roberts 1970: 4).

7.5 Native Attachment

First Nations traditionally have a more holistic and organic understanding of the environment. Thus, many Indigenous writers focus on nature in their stories to share their beliefs with the common people. Thomas King points out that “the appearance of Native stories in written form has opened up new worlds of imagination for a non-Native audience” (1990: xi). One of the reoccurring themes in Indigenous literature is the deep attachment and special relationship between humans and animals. Sto:lo writer, Lee Maracle reflects on a special encounter between Natives and whales in “Blessing Song”.

In this story, three Salish women join tourists on a whale watching boat on the West Coast between Canada and the United States. Not only do they witness the killer whales’ migration, but they also share a very intimate encounter with the animals. As the whale watchers spot the killer whales, some whales suddenly approach the boat and the biggest individual “swims within six feet of the boat, stands straight up and murmurs at us” (Maracle 2010a: 30). The captain and the tourists are astonished, this has not happened before. The whale ‘demands’ an Indigenous song, and the Salish women oblige: “I feel a song being pulled from some place deep inside me. I hesitate. We don’t sing in front of white people, but the killer whale seems to demand nothing less” (Maracle 2010a: 31). Therefore, the women sing an ancient song. They are overwhelmed and at the same time reminded of their deep connection with nature: “This whale managed to close all the spaces between us. The song forced from us by the whale

16 The panther cubs’ death is further analysed in chapter 7.6. 64 reminds us that our lineage stretches back forever” (ibid.). They become ‘one’, all gaps are closed. That passage beautifully reminds the readers of an honest connection and a harmonic relationship with animals. Empathy is developed by this strong bond and the interconnection that exists between the two species. This message is underlined by the poetic language that is used in Maracle’s story. The song is ‘forced’ from the Salish women, they are ‘forced’ to remember and must not forget.

The connection between animals and Natives is also mentioned in The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek. In a conversation with elders of the Stoney Nakoda tribe, Sid Marty was familiarized with the bear’s significance to members of First Nations. The Stoney tribe believes that “the earth is the bear’s ear […] when we talk about the bear it hears us, so we have to be careful and speak respectfully” (Marty 2008: 1). Due to their spiritual connection with the bear, it is asked for guidance. The animal provides the Indigenous people with medicine and its sacred flesh, and in return, bears are honoured and praised. If humans kill, injure or scare one individual, it affects the whole species and the bears might decide to hurt the people as well (cf. ibid.). Marty’s explanation of the animals’ significance to the Natives wakes a strong wish for animal protection.

7.6 Death of Animals

One of the most successful methods authors apply in animal stories to promote empathy in the readers is the account of tragic deaths of the non-human heroes. In Robert’s “Do Seek Their Meat from God”, the murder of the panther parents is a terrible event. However, even deeper sadness or dismay is caused by including the panther cubs in the story. Who would not pity innocent and vulnerable babies? Their death is not immediately revealed, and when the reader believes the story to be over, another dramatic and shocking climax happens. The readers show most empathy in the last passage of the text, when they realize that the helpless cubs must have wondered where their parents were, while slowly starving to death. The settler who shot the panther parents follows the trail of a bear when he finds “the dead bodies, now rapidly decaying, of two small panther cubs” (Roberts 1970: 6).

In Fred Bodsworth’s Last of the Curlews the female’s death is even more tragic, as it signifies the extinction of the Eskimo curlew. At the end, once again, the male curlew finds himself

65 alone, waiting for a female to arrive. The significant difference, however, is that now he is the only individual of his species. This is highlighted in the introduction to the novel: “for the curlew is at the end as he was in the beginning – without a mate. But there is one difference. Now over all extent of the planet there is no other for him” (Bodsworth 1963: ix). Therefore, the extinction of his species is inevitable, and the reader is made to feel the tragic dimension of this species loss.

Finally, the whole animal kingdom in Gowdy’s novel is overshadowed by death, as it suffers either from the effects of the terrible drought or the human-caused slaughters. Nearly all central elephant families are wiped out and the other species are not luckier. Mud observes a monkey mother with the lifeless corpse of her infant and the ‘depleted’ place, as the earth is referred to, is filled with suffering: “There is nothing green here and nothing in flower and nothing not withered. Almost every tree is black with vultures, the earth a pandemonium of bones poking through drifts of red dust or, where the ground has been burned, through black ash” (Gowdy 1998: 91). All Mud is surrounded with is death and the earth is covered by bones. Mud considers death even preferable to such a miserable, hard life: “[t]he skeletons belong to the grazers, but it is those zebras and wildebeests and gazelles still standing who seem more dead, less lucky, than their fallen relations” (ibid.). Mud empathizes with these poor creatures and is “astonished by the[ir] bleakness: the scattered grazers, their angular wavering shapes” (Gowdy 1998: 20). Only Torrent, an old bull is granted a respectful, natural death: “an old bull dying the way the old bulls are meant to die, as they died before the drought and slaughters” (Gowdy 1998: 298). He is dying of the only reason acceptable to Mud, he is dying of age.

7.7 Criticism of Human Behaviour

In most ecological animal stories human behaviour is criticized. This can happen indirectly, as for example in “Blessing Song”, where humans do not remember their connection and long history with animals, or in a direct way, as in The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek. Embedded in the story, Marty appeals to the readers’ conscience by stressing that “[i]f we want the bears to survive, we are going to have to adjust the way we live, keeping human food and garbage and dead steers out of their reach” (Marty 2008: 6). Without any uncarefully stored food, bears would not be attracted to human settlements in the first place and would avoid human contact instead. Most bear attacks, which often end in the murder of the bears, are caused by incorrect

66 behaviour or careless human action. Furthermore, Marty also criticizes the humans’ egoistic stupidity, which is reflected in the story about two hikers who destroy a beaver dam out of boredom, only to see how much time the beavers would need to rebuild it. Another example is urban development: “[a]pproximately 3 percent of the land in Banff National Park’s 2,564 square miles is prime habitat for bears and other wildlife and that is the same habitat where we have built townsites, roads, and campgrounds” (Marty 2008: 7). Why would anyone choose these three percent of the territory for settlement? Such action carries the signature of self- centred monsters called humans. Additionally, Marty notes the rapid melting of our glaciers: “In our era, glaciers change faster than the right-wing mind, […] I no longer recognize the remnants of the glaciers that I traversed with skies […] a mere 40 years ago, which is not even a millisecond in geological time” (Marty 2008: 23); this highlights just another one of the “fading markers of a shrinking wilderness left by the triumphal march of human folly” (Marty 2008: 25). In all our planet’s history, humans have inhabited the Earth for a very short amount of time. Nonetheless, they have managed to destroy it, a development that is now referred to as the Anthropocene.

Another example is Roberts’ “Do Seek Their Meat from God”, which voices criticism of human behaviour in sentences such as, “[t]he settlements of late had been making great inroads on the world of ancient forest, driving before them the deer and smaller game. Hence the sharp hunger of the panther parents” (1970: 2). Again, humans carelessly destroy the environment without considering the consequences for the other species.

In addition to that, Bodsworth’s novel conveys the message that humans kill for the sheer sake of killing, and in Gowdy’s novel humans are demonized: “the darkness had entered the humans and was corrupting their already corrupt spirits. Soon they were slaughtering whole families. After devouring the flesh of the kills, they were burning the hides and pulverizing the bones and tusks. They seemed bent on annihilation” (Gowdy 1998: 43). Humans build water holes with the purpose of attracting and killing thousands of animals. Due to the drought, most other water sources have dried out so that the animals have no other option than to feed at the artificial water holes. Of course, they do not know yet that they are lured there for a reason. Humans are “[s]laughterers – a new and stunningly voracious generation” (Gowdy 1998: 56), who also torture animals for their amusement: “in parts of the world where populations of white humans were densest, calves were being enslaved and trained to stand on their hind legs while throwing

67 colossal bubbles back and forth” (Gowdy 1998: 58). Such cruelty ascribed to people in environmental animal stories serves as eye opener for the readers.

8 Pollution and Environmental Degradation

The second chapter of my analysis deals with pollution and other forms of environmental degradation. It is dedicated to the violation of nature, a place that Clark defines as “the non- human world, the non-artificial, [that is] considered as an object of human contemplation, exploitation, wonder or terror” (2011: 7). Luke, an American scholar, states that humans, due to their careless behaviour, cause significant changes in their natural surroundings, turning nature into ‘denature’: “pollution modifies atmospheric chemistry, urbanization restructures weather events, architecture encloses whole biomes in sprawling megacities, and biotechnology reengineers the base codes of existing biomass” (1997: 195). Many scholars believe that humans will be responsible for their own extinction. Keith Tester, for example, is convinced that human exploitation and the perception of being superior to nature and animals will ultimately backfire on the people: “[s]o long as we civilized men imagine ourselves to be apart from the land, and from our fellow creatures, we shall attempt to exploit them for our private gain, and the attempt will kill us” (1991: 8). Today, the preoccupation for our surroundings is essential in literature and should occur in as many genres as possible. The consequences of the anthropogenic planet’s crisis are clearly noticeable around the world, which is why “[t]eaching and studying literature without reference to the natural conditions of the world and the basic ecological principles that underlie all life seems increasingly shortsighted, incongruous” (Love 2003: 16). Especially in Canadian literature environmental concern is rather stereotypical (cf. Soper and Bradly 2013: xxiv). In the following subchapters, I will analyse how writers trigger empathetic responses among their readership while focusing on environmental degradation in their works.

8.1 Dystopian Settings

One widely applied technique to make the readers aware of the effects of the environmental crisis is the author’s use of apocalyptic settings. Dystopian scenarios help the reader to grasp the seriousness of the topic and spark empathy. Trexler emphasizes that this technique is 68 especially used to familiarize the readers with the issue of climate change, which is often rendered as “an immediate, local disaster” (2015: 75): “The most common strategy of climate change novels is to describe contemporary inertia as a catastrophic miscalculation of climate change’s costs“ (Trexler 2015: 120). End of the world scenarios are used to warn us about the future and serve as wake-up calls. Thereby, the important message that writers try to convey, is that humankind is responsible for the destroyed planet. Many environmental novels are set in the future, when all the Earth’s resources are exploited, the mountains are deforested and food is rare. Culprits of the destruction are the people who lived in the past and acted as if they were ignorant of the consequences of global warming, when they still had the chance to act and prevent the apocalyptic situation. As these novels are set in the future, today’s society is referred to. While reading about floods, droughts, heavy winters or other natural disasters, powerful images are created that trigger strong emotions in the reader’s mind. Therefore, this method can be observed in numerous works of eco-fiction.

One of the novels that fits into this category is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. In this story “humans have wholly failed to respond to the threat of anthropogenic climate change” (Trexler 2015: 120). Westling points out that ecocriticism has turned from an individual experience to a collective social situation, which proves to be true for climate change as its consequences affect the whole planet and never one individual alone (cf. Westling 2014: 6). As the topic of this thesis focuses on environmental issues, I will only discuss the environmental aspects in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Therefore, I will consider the exploitation of our planet and the death of nature, which are often the overlaps between dystopia and eco-literature.

Advanced climate change poses a deadly threat to Snowman17, the protagonist of the novel. Climate shows its extremes with unpredictable changes from raging storms with heavy rainfall to insufferable heat. At noon, sunshine has to be avoided due to extraordinarily strong ultraviolet radiation. Snowman always has to find shelter to steer clear of the sea because “the evil rays bounce off the water and get at him even if he’s protected from the sky, and then he reddens and blisters” (Atwood 2004: 43). The sun is described as ‘punishing’ and Snowman has to be careful not to get sunburned despite his protective blankets: “he could still burn, despite the sunblock and the two layers of cloth” (Atwood 2004: 333). Only shortly after that,

17 At first, Snowman seems to be the only survivor of the human race. Only at the end, this is proven untrue. His prior-apocalyptic name was Jimmy, but he chooses to call himself Snowman after the word-wide plague that was caused by his best friend Crake and wiped out the Earth’s human population. 69 the afternoon storms bring “hailstones as big as golf balls” (2004: 49). Weather conditions have become unpredictable. Humidity, heat and unusually violent storms, make the world more and more inhospitable for the human race. Pouring rain worsens the heavy storms, which is described as follows: “[w]ater sluices down onto him as the lightning sizzles. Branches thrash around overhead, rivulets amble along the ground” (ibid.). While Snowman suffers from the burning-hot asphalt by day, he shivers in the chilly breezes at night. The hostile living conditions are successfully conveyed through Snowman’s focalization. The narrative situation is excellently chosen in this novel: the reader immediately empathizes with the protagonist, who witnesses the end of humanity and cannot escape. Everything is trying to kill him, and at the same time, the reader is always reminded that these inhuman living conditions are anthropogenic. Using focalizers in environmental fiction is a widespread and very effective method of increasing empathy. The world is perceived through the eyes of one of the last human beings. If the story was told by an omniscient narrator instead, a much greater distance between readers and story events would be created. This way, however, we feel for the protagonist, share his desperation and hopelessness, and shiver with him during the cold nights.

An important dystopian aspect in Oryx and Crake is the exploitation of nature due to technological advancement in form of genetic engineering. According to Trexler, this is a typical topic in climate change novels (cf. 2015: 32). Native plants are gradually killed and supplanted by artificial plants. The same destiny, namely death, awaits the animals, humans and other organisms. The underlying issue is the human destruction of nature, which results from “[t]he disastrous impulse born of the will to master nature” (Westling 2014: 1). This is a common topic that is based on reality. Westling points out that “landscapes on every continent were forcibly turned to human purposes by advancing technologies and burgeoning populations, which have now brought us to what many fear is the brink of global ecological collapse” (ibid.). In the novel, Crake, a scientific genius and Snowman’s best friend, sees numerous flaws in the human race, such as diseases, sexual desire, emotions and racism, amongst others. Crake is a visionary who wants to improve the world. He secretly creates a new, humanlike, advanced species to replace the planet’s population. Scientists exploit nature by ‘playing God’. They live in privileged, gated communities, where they experiment with the modification and splicing of genes to create animals such as ‘wolvogs’, ‘rakunks’ or ‘pigoons’. The latter refers to pigs which can grow organs of human tissue so that substitute livers, kidneys or hearts are available at any time. Scientists create living organ banks by objectifying nature. Another example of animal experimentation for human use is the creation of brainless chicken,

70 which only grow certain body parts, such as for instance chicken breasts. As the brain function is removed, the animals feel no pain and cruelty, so according to Crake, animal protectors cannot complain (cf. Atwood 2004: 238). This blurs the borders: how far can we go in genetic engineering and still be human? This form of experimenting is a form of bioterrorism. When asked about artificial butterflies, Crake does not once question his creations and claims that it is of no importance whether something is real or not (cf. Atwood 2004: 235).

Atwood herself perceives dystopian fiction as a frightening vision of the future by connecting dystopian happenings to contemporary development. She claims that they “are often more like dire warnings than satires, dark shadows cast by the present into the future. They are what will happen to us if we don’t pull up our socks” (Atwood 2006: 87). In her literature, the feeling of danger is increased and the reader is offered a glimpse of what life will look like, if we continue to exploit nature. The depiction of troubling futures raises global awareness and conveys grim warnings. Life on earth seems like hell to our protagonist but the only ones to blame for the catastrophe is his own species, the human beings.

According to Lawrence Buell, “[a]pocalypse is the single most powerful master metaphor that the contemporary environmental imagination has at its disposal” (1995: 285). Such end of the world scenarios aim at shocking and scaring the audience deeply (cf. Kerridge 2014: 372). A novel such as Oryx and Crake wakes a certain sense of global responsibility to help the people make the morally right decisions (cf. Wolter 2010: 270). According to Greg Garrard, dystopian world views have to be included in environmental literature as they could lead to action: “Apocalyptic rhetoric seems a necessary component of environmental discourse. It is capable of galvanising activists, of converting the undecided and ultimately, perhaps, of influencing government and commercial policy” (2004: 104). He believes that tragic, apocalyptic events have the most influential effect on people (cf. Garrard 2004: 88).

Despite the importance of apocalyptic aspects that trigger empathy for nature, novels cannot entirely consist of negative elements as this might have the opposite effect. Weik von Mossner underlines that “[c]ueing negative emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, mourning and regret is an often-tried and yet risky strategy for environmental narratives, because an overload of negative emotions might either lead to debilitating pessimism or to various forms of denial” (2017: 163). That is why, many dystopian novels leave some glimmer of hope or some form of silver-lining at the end of the story, especially if the works are intended for young adults (cf.

71 ibid.). If there is not the smallest chance that there is a future, readers might lose hope and their fighting spirit altogether. Therefore, also Oryx and Crake ends with an open end that leaves room for interpretation. Throughout the novel, Snowman believes to be the last survivor of the human race, but in the final chapter, three humans appear and the main character decides to approach them.

Dystopian settings are closely linked to imagery. The description of apocalyptic landscapes makes readers ‘see’ the destruction through the creation of mental images. This form of imagery will be discussed later in this thesis. However, to provide an example, Charlotte Gill’s Eating Dirt features apocalyptic settings visually. She pictures terrible logging scenes and clear-cuts as “slash fields [that] are brittle grey, weathered and skeletal as a bone yard” (Gill 2011: 86). The dystopian description of the place becomes alive in our minds and, therefore, the reader feels uncomfortable and disgusted when reading about such a damaged environment. Dystopian settings in novels trigger emotional responses. Although the dystopian, futuristic, environmental destruction that the characters have to live in cannot be changed anymore, the reader is motivated to act and to protect nature, hoping that the featured world will never become reality. Imagery will be further discussed in subchapter 8.6 of this thesis.

8.2 Reminders of the Past

Another powerful empathy-creating technique is the narrative’s inclusion of flashbacks to a healthy planet, which serve as reminders of the past and are closely linked to futuristic narratives. Many eco-fictional works are set in the future and thus offer a glimpse of the world in the past when nature has not been destroyed yet. This method is mostly used when the ecological collapse has already happened in the narrative, and flashbacks remind the characters of a healthy Earth: “The period that precedes this future, the stage of anticipation, is often (sometimes very briefly) also introduced in these narratives, usually by plotlines that alternate between the characters’ present and their lives before climate collapse” (Mayer 2016: 506). The protagonists longingly remember a time when there was still hope for the planet, and when people did not constantly have to fight for their survival. Future settings help to highlight the catastrophic state of the environment, as depicted in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Snowman, the protagonist, remembers Jimmy’s world when climate change and the exploitation of natural surroundings had not caused drastic consequences yet. Snowman faces uninhabitable living

72 conditions and nature is taking its toll, revenging itself for the destructive human behaviour. Slowly, nature takes its control back. As Snowman seems to be the only survivor of the human race, he has no one to share his struggles with. The young adult’s memories take him back to his childhood. As son of the privileged, he had always lived in gated communities and does not know what the Earth looked like before that. However, he recalls some of the adults who would remember ‘the good old times’, before coastal beaches and cities were swallowed due to rising sea-levels, before all orchards dried out due to a lack of rain, before the Everglades burned, and lakes became small, dirty puddles (cf. Atwood 2003: 72). Atwood often includes such ancient memories, which mostly consist of only one sentence but are nonetheless extremely powerful. It is a subtle way to warn the readers what they are risking with their carelessness and what beauty could be lost forever. One example of such a message is hidden in the following passage that summarizes the events before Jimmy’s time: “time went on and the coastal aquifers turned salty and the northern permafrost melted and the vast tundra bubbled with methane, and the drought in the midcontinental plains regions went on and on, and the Asian steppes turned to sand dunes” (2004: 27). Unfortunately, neither Snowman, nor Jimmy ever got to see the former natural beauties of the planet.

Additionally, Snowman himself is a reminder of the past. Firstly, his name cannot be understood by the Crakers because they have never seen snow, and secondly, his appearance represents his history. The Crakers wonder why Snowman grows ‘moss’ in his face. His looks confuse the humanlike species as they are created without any facial hair. Crake did not like shaving, so the visionary ‘perfectionated’ his creation. Snowman’s natural look is suddenly the odd one out, the one that does not belong. Nature is dying, which is represented in small details as missing facial hair. It is repeatedly emphasized that human beings will become extinct, and that their past and their knowledge will be forgotten. Snowman reflects that he is “the last Homo sapiens […] left to melt in the sun” (2004: 263).

Another powerful reminder of the past is an online game that Jimmy and Crake enjoyed playing during their youth. This trivia game, called Extinctathon, hints at planet Earth’s dying biodiversity. It focuses on animals that are already extinct in Jimmy’s world, some of which were on the brink of extinction during the production of the novel. Atwood captured the tragic loss of the animal kingdom. She reminds her readers of endangered animals and the consequences that the anthropogenic annihilation entails for nature. Today, many animals that appear in the boys’ online game are not extinct yet, but they will be if humans refuse to

73 counteract the global crisis. Oryx and Crake, two protagonists in the novel, chose their names from the trivia game’s list of extinct animals. The ironic aspect is that, at first, humans play Extinctathon but very soon, the human species will also be part of the game. The homo sapiens sapiens will probably be remembered as former earth inhabitants that followed the beluga whale and the polar bear in extinction.

Another novel that reminds us of the past’s harmony, beauty and natural diversity, is Charlotte Gill’s Eating Dirt. Her novel deals with Canadian forests and the Canadian logging industry. In order to increase profit and to meet the high demand of wood required in the industry, the logging companies employ tree planters. Gill summarizes the experiences of one season in a tree planter’s life, always hinting at the irony of the existence of this profession in the first place. Tree planters are hired by logging companies to reforest clear cuts, which allows the companies to log even more trees. In this novel, the reader is provided with a detailed description of today’s logging situation in Canada while being reminded of the past as well. Through these reminders Gill carries the readers to untouched nature which conveys a sense of an unspoiled, healthy environment. Furthermore, passages that compare the present state with the situation in the past serve as warnings for our future. If we have already destroyed such an enormous amount of our natural surroundings in such a short period of time, what will our planet look like in the future? It is highly unlikely that humans will suddenly change their profit-oriented lifestyles; what will our destruction lead to?

Gill often shares specific details regarding the importance of our natural world. As soon as this is understood by the reader, the harmonic description of the past situation is destroyed by an image of today’s degradation which always carries the human signature. This technique is exemplified in the following paragraph:

The coastal region supports more biomass per square foot than any of the planet’s tropical rainforests. There is simply more living matter breathing, dying and metamorphosing here than anywhere else. But these are fragmented glades, the remnants of a forest that once spanned, virtually uninterrupted, through twenty degrees of latitude, nearly half the length of the North American continent. Most of the original forests of California, Oregon, and Washington are now gone. (Gill 2011: 10)

While the initial sentences create a beautiful mental image, the last sentence shatters the illusion and takes us back to reality. We are reminded that people have logged most rainforests and this environmental degradation sparks empathy in the readers. Until 1900, the area of the original forests in the United States was reduced to half its size. Further, the mangrove forests “have all

74 but disappeared. So too has the marine habitat these trees once provided” (Gill 2011: 40). When certain plants are eliminated, whole ecosystems are affected. In this example, the marine habitat has suffered as well. The scarcity of fish results in a lack of food for the locals, who have lived on fishery for generations. Nature is interconnected and sooner or later, humans have to live with the consequences of their actions. The downside, however, is that in most cases, other living species suffer before humans are even affected. When people finally react, it might already be too late for certain species.

As Gills novel deals with the destruction of forests and its plants, she often adds historical details about certain tree species. Their past is related as if the trees were people: “Conifers, especially, are ancient creatures. Their genetic antecedents arose as long as 300 million years ago” (Gill 2011: 68). Conifers belong to the oldest tree species on the planet: “[t]here are few living things on Earth as old as the DNA of conifers” (Gill 2011: 72). Highlighting the trees’ long history has a great effect. If something existed in this world for such a long period of time, who gives us the right to carelessly destroy it? Especially, when it is a living organism? Of course, even greater empathy is developed when conifers are depicted in an anthropomorphic way. Gill states that a “healthy [conifer] parent can grow thousands of cones, each containing hundreds of seeds” (2011: 70); however, only very few of these seeds survive.

Reminders of the past – be it in form of flashbacks as in Oryx and Crake or in the form of comparisons and detailed descriptions as in Eating Dirt – make the audience empathize with the environment. It is a powerful method to feature a destroyed landscape, and to then emphasize the beauty and the advantages it once provided. Such past reminders should also be perceived as warnings. By, for example, comparing today’s remnants with the native, healthy forests that once spanned throughout the North American continent, Gill draws attention to the severe damage that humans have caused in a very limited amount of time. There is no need to explicitly pose the question of what our exploitative lifestyles will lead to. We have to consider what we have managed to destroy in a millisecond of geological time to picture the future of planet Earth.

8.3 The Native Representation of Environmental Degradation

First Nation writers often produce works of eco-fiction with special focus on the degradation of the land. As their behaviour is less exploitative towards nature, they clearly distinguish themselves from non-Natives, which is strongly emphasized by Anishinaabe writer Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm. She claims that Canadian Indigenous people “are fundamentally different from anyone else in this land, fundamentally different from Canadians. The basis of the difference is the land, our passion for it and our understanding of our relationship with it. We belong to this land. The land does not belong to us” (1998: 84). Through their art, Indigenous writers condemn the arrogant belief that ‘humans control nature’ and they remind us that often the Natives are the ones who suffer as victims of environmental injustice. In their works, empathy is generated for First Nations and for natural surroundings at the same time.

The first example of a powerful Native text that draws attention to environmental degradation is Warren Cariou’s “An Athabasca Story”. The short story deals with the Athabasca Tar Sands, which are one of the world’s largest bitumen deposits and fossil energy reserves, located in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The name ‘Tar Sands’ derives from the process of separation of oil and sand in refineries. The industry has always been criticised for its “devastation on the homelands of Cree, Dene, and Métis peoples, on immense tracts of boreal forest, and on the habitat of many animal species” (Black et al. 2014: 4). In addition to that, the Tar Sands are responsible for high emissions of greenhouse gases, the reduction of wildlife, the destruction of ecosystems and the pollution of water systems due to toxic waste spills. An enormous pipeline system that leaks repeatedly, spans thousands of kilometres through North America and exports Canadian oil as far as Texas. Of course, the extraction of fossil fuels and its harming consequences for the environment have often caused resistance of activists, environmentalists and the Native populations. Not only have Indigenous peoples been trying to protect their sacred ancestral land, but they have also been struggling from severe health issues caused by the toxic oil industry. Much knowledge about the environmental destruction at the Athabasca River Basin has reached the wider public through art. In “An Athabasca Story” Cariou points out that Indigenous territory, nature and ecosystems are sacrificed for profit and human greed. Cariou shared that he grew up in a community in Saskatchewan that was threatened by the development of the Athabasca oil sands. Hence, he started his research and visited various sites, including First Nations’ territory, where tribe members were severely affected by the Tar Sands. He contributed to a documentary called Land of Oil and Water that examined “the effects of oil

76 sands development on Aboriginal people in Northern Alberta and Northern Saskatchewan” (MIWF 2014: min 1:40), and was inspired to write ‘Elder Brother’s’ story, as claimed at the Indigenous Writer’s Festival of Manitoba in 2014. In “An Athabasca Story”, a convincing focalization of ‘Elder Brother’ is provided, and thus, the reader learns about the environmental injustice from a Native’s point of view. According to Weik von Mossner, this is a highly effective technique as “such narratives use our capacity for empathy strategically in order to encourage readers to feel moral allegiance with the victims of environmental injustice” (2017: 79). In the story, the reader immediately sympathizes with Elder Brother who yearns for food and a fire to warm himself. As the protagonist reaches an unknown, empty, vast land with a pungent smell, he is drawn to the big yellow creatures that ‘bite’ the dark earth because he knows that he could warm himself inside them (cf. Cariou 2012: 70). When a company worker explains the power of the special dirt of the Tar Sands, Elder Brother immediately wants to get some of it. However, he is rudely refused and sent away from the company’s property. Why would the people who are safely shielded from the cold in their ‘houses’ and have the quantity of magical dirt to keep everyone warm not share with shivering Elder Brother? The protagonist is disappointed by this selfish and unjust decision and so he decides to steal the ‘dirt’. Too late, he realizes that he gets stuck in the Tar Sands and no one helps him. The story ends tragically with an implicit request to humankind: together with the deep black dirt Elder Brother is processed in the refineries, and even today you can hear him knocking when you drive your car. The protagonist, who metaphorically represents nature, is ‘imprisoned’ and has no chance of justice without the people’s action. Elder Brother and the environment are “trying to get your attention, begging you to let him [/them] out” (Cariou 2012: 75). Human beings are responsible for the irreversible destruction of nature and despite their fault they choose to ignore to act. Money-mindedness and greed turn people into selfish monsters. They are so focused on increasing profit that they are blinded to the lasting damage they have caused to their natural surroundings. Whenever Elder Brother is knocking from your car, he reminds you of environmental injustice and your responsibility to act.

In addition to Cariou’s oil mining story, Lee Maracle offers another traumatic Native experience in “Goodbye Snauq”. According to various Indigenous authors, there is a so-called ‘healing power of storytelling’ that helps the victims to deal with historical drama (cf. Thom 2015: 23). It is stressed that this power “stems from the fact that Native writers generate discourse which constructs their own identities and puts them in a position that allows them to control how they are being represented” (ibid.). “Goodbye Snauq” centres the protagonist’s pain as she struggles

77 to cope with a historical, intergenerational trauma. A teaching assistant with Squamish ancestry laments the loss of Snauq, the Native village of her peoples. When white settlers arrived, the Indigenous people were mistreated, their land was exploited and, eventually, they were forced to relocate. In this short story, ecocriticism is linked to colonialization, the domination of white settlers and the resulting dispossession of Native land. Additionally, the Natives were declared non-citizens if they refused to give up their Indigenous status. This traumatic experience was rather ironic as the original inhabitants of the land suddenly received the status of immigrants if they refused to renounce their Native identities. Despite not having witnessed the trauma herself, the stories have been passed on from generation to generation. The protagonist’s pain is triggered by the receipt of a letter that informs her that the Native and the Canadian government have brokered an agreement: her elders have renounced any claim to Snauq, which is called False Creek now, for the compensation of 92 million dollars. The protagonist’s pain is portrayed very realistically, and the reader immediately empathizes with her. She tries to suppress her grief with alcohol and in her emotionally desperate state, she reflects on her peoples and starts a conversation with chief Khahtsahlano, her highly admired ancestor who experienced the terrible abuse first-hand. While sharing the pain with her ancestors she automatically reflects on the exploitation of the Native land and the poisoning of the environment that was caused by the settlers. In her thoughts, Khahtsahlano reminds her that the white men have destroyed everything: “they drank up almost the whole Snauq with their dredging machines” (Maracle 2010c: 15), they polluted the water, wasted the resources, build industries and garbage landfills, burned the original village and killed the land with toxic chemical waste. The teaching assistant melancholically remembers natural areas such as the “vegetable patch, berry field, elk warren, duck pond and fish habitat” (Maracle 2010c: 19). The Indigenous people lived in harmony with nature. This is, for instance, reflected in the attitudes towards logging. While the settlers exploited the forests mercilessly, her own ancestors refused to “kill the young ones” (Maracle 2010c: 21). Unfortunately, the Natives’ appreciation of nature is never copied by the settlers. In this context, the white men’s hypocrisy is explicitly criticised: “I am not anxious to be part of an environmentally offensive society that can preach ‘thou shalt not kill’ and then make war on people, plants and animals to protect and advance financial gain” (Maracle 2010c: 27). Despite the inevitable loss of Snauq, the teaching assistant’s students decide to support and accompany her to the area for a proper goodbye-ceremony.

A beautiful aspect of Maracle’s short story which remains with the audience is that the destruction of the environment equally represents the loss of the Native identity. The pollution

78 of their surroundings and the exploitation of the river and their territory hurt the Indigenous peoples as much as the burning of their houses, the dispossession of their sacred land and the deprivation of their citizenship. As nature is part of the Native identity, the Native peoples suffer when the environment suffers. This message is beautifully conveyed in “Goodbye Snauq” and increases the reader’s empathetic response.

Another powerful Native story is Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle. This novel, again, is based on the Native belief of interconnectedness that “reject[s] strict seperations between human beings and the environment” (Löschnigg 2020a: 276). It deals with human-caused environmental disasters that are narrated by the ecofriendly Native victims, on the one hand, and the corrupt and irresponsible opposition, on the other hand. Gabriel Quinn, a leading scientist at a biotechonlogical company called Domidion, travels to Samaritan Bay to commit suicide. He created ‘GreenSweep’, a genetically modified bacterium which was used as a defoliant. Due to a false dilution, GreenSweep became a chemical weapon that caused an environmental disaster that killed all plants, animals and sea life in a radius of 20 kilometres. The deadly bacterium polluted river systems, and as a consequence poisoned the Native population of Smoke River Reserve in Samaritan Bay, which was nearly eradicated18. Guilt- driven, Gabriel travels to the site and tries to commit suicide. However, he is interrupted and slowly becomes friends with the three remaining Natives that moan their damaged surroundings and their lost family members and friends. Gabriel becomes part of the painful healing process. Mara Reid, a young woman that returned to the “Aboriginal Ghost Town” (King 2014: 99), remembers the inhabitants of Smoke River that lost their lives on what is referred to as ‘That One Bad Day’ by painting their portraits. In her memories the Native population lives on because without its inhabitants the reservation is empty: “she knew that there was nothing left to see. The abandoned houses, empty trailers, the deserted community centre, the solitary water tower. Without the people, none of these places had any meaning” (King 2014: 74). Art helps Mara to deal with the tragedy at Smoke River. Among the people in her paintings are her former best friend Lilly and her baby Riel, who turn out to be Gabriel’s sister and his nephew. Gabriel knows that he is responsible for ‘The Ruin’, the day that GreenSweep killed all life in Samaritan Bay, and feels “an obligation to help create a new world from the one Domidion destroyed” (Ridington 2015: 163). Before the catastrophe, Samaritan Bay attracted many tourists during the turtle hatching season, but as all other animals in the area, the turtles have not returned, and

18 The ‘GreenSweep-disaster’ will be explained more closely in chapter 8.6. 79 the town’s motel stays empty. In the course of the narrative, nature is slowly recovering, and the Natives’ mental wounds are starting to heal. Of course, there will always remain deep mental scars but the survivors slowly learn to live with it. King’s novel is highly intertextual and symbolic19, and the narrative includes various Indian tales and “stories of the destructive hubris of western civilization” (ibid.). Throughout the novel, the reader shares the pain with the protagonists, learns about the Indigenous interconnectedness with nature, and develops an appreciation for flora and fauna. In this story, King successfully creates empathy, as the narrative’s recipient is offered to what Weik von Mossner refers as ‘insider perspective’ and ‘outsider perspective’. According to her, “narratives can either cue us to feel directly with the victims of injustice or indirectly, by aligning us with an outsider who learns to care about such victims” (Weik von Mossner 2017: 103). In this novel, the reader is provided with both: the insider perspective is offered through the Natives and the outsider perspective can be perceived as Gabriel, who learns about the victims of Smoke River and their stories. The Back of the Turtle will be further analysed at a later stage of this thesis.

In the Native narratives that were discussed in this chapter, the readership is invited “to empathize and sympathize with out-group others who are at risk” (Weik von Mossner 2017: 78). As nature is part of the Indigenous identity, the treatment of First Nations mirrors the people’s behaviour towards the environment. Weik von Mossner claims that the “readers’ empathy [is] strategically [used] to make a moral argument about people who have been wronged” (ibid.). Due to the strong interconnectedness both parties are abused. The reader’s feeling of unease proves this empathy-creating strategy to be highly successful. People act carelessly about nature, but when they finally realize the damage they have caused, it is mostly too late and cannot be undone. Abenaki tribe member Alanis Obomsawin20 wisely acknowledged in an interview in 1972, that human arrogance will eventually lead to our downfall. She quoted a famous Native American saying by stressing the following: “When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, we will realize that we cannot eat money” (Obomsawin 2017: online).

19 For a detailed analysis of the novel’s intertextuality and symbolic reading see Ridington (2015) and Löschnigg (2020). 20 Alanis Obomsawin was an American Canadian documentarist and activist. 80

8.4 Stylistic and Rhetorical Devices

Some environmental texts stick to our minds because of their poetic language. Stylistic devices, such as word games, and rhetorical devices can increase the recipient’s emotional response, and they render a text livelier and more memorable. Authors have mastered the art of playing with language, which is crucial for eco-literature. Stylistic and rhetorical devices appear especially in eco-poetry, but, of course, various other eco-friendly genres make use of them as well. One example is Margret Atwood’s “The Tent”, a short story that can be read with an ecocritical approach due to its central topic, the disintegration of the environment. This text is a second person narration with a strong appellative function. As the reader is directly addressed, they feel trapped in the story like the main character. The language is highly poetic. The central metaphor of the paper tent refers to the fragility of life. Everything outside the tent is negatively connotated. The tent consists of paper walls, so there is hardly any obstacle to pass for the terrifying monsters outside. The person inside tries to protect everything that is dear to them. Beloved people, happy memories and nature are all threatened, but it seems impossible to protect them. By reading the short story with an ecocritical approach, the people represent activists and environmentalists who fight for the protection of their land and nature. However, they are unsuccessful. The dreadful howlers from outside ‘reach’ the safe space anyways. The howlers can be interpreted as climate change or other unstoppable natural disasters that threaten all life on Earth. A beautiful detail of this interpretation is the protagonist’s continuous writing on the paper walls. This represents the urge to keep on fighting. People do not quit and they want to tell the truth. Despite the implicated pointlessness, you, that is the main character in the story, contribute to the truth and continue to write about the global crisis. Even if people refuse to listen, they need to be confronted with it, until, finally, they start to fight for the planet’s health as well. In the story, due to a sudden breeze, the candle falls over and the paper tent catches fire. All hope seems lost but you, the protagonist, continue to write “because what else can you do?” (Atwood 2006: 146). This is the behaviour that should be expected regarding environmental protection: keep on fighting and never give up.

Often, authors use sound effects that increase unease. In “The Tent” onomatopoeia and other sonic devices affect the reader’s sense of hearing: “there’s a clomping of leather-covered feet, there’s a scratching, there’s a scrabbling, there’s a sound of rasping breath” (Atwood 2006: 146). The writer creates suspense through acoustic signals, which scare the protagonist and the readership as well.

In addition to that, repetition is an important element of the text. The howling creatures outside the tent induce fear and this feeling is worsened through the constant repetition of ‘howling’ or other words with the same stem: “Many things are howling out there, in the howling wilderness. Many people are howling. Some howl in grief because those they love have died or been killed, others howl in triumph […] the noise is deafening” (Atwood 2006: 143f). The repetition of the verb triggers our imagination and we identify with the frightened protagonist. We are inside a fragile paper tent and the noises terrify us. Repetition creates emotions; in this case, it is fear. The protagonist is trapped in a situation they cannot escape from. Of course, this story will not end happily.

Another writer that convinces the audience with her artistic writing style is Charlotte Gill. Eating Dirt is filled with poetic language devices which constitute a thrilling narrative. This novel should be discussed in this subcategory because it offers the widest variety of rhetorical devices from the selected literature. Gill uses numerous metaphors to convey the extent of the catastrophe. When the tree planters reach their new working site, the protagonist is shocked by Red Stripe, “a mountain shaved on all sides, from shoreline to peak” (Gill 2011: 65). Such metaphors help the reader to picture the present logging situation in Canada. Of course, metaphors also address the beauty of nature and emphasize the importance of forests and trees. Throughout the novel, Gill points out the various functions of trees: they provide us with shelter, with food and life as they ‘exhale oxygen’. To her, trees are precious friends and her descriptions convey a sense of appreciation. In another passage, she refers to trees as “clever, as any plumber will tell you. Their roots strangle backyard pipes […]” (Gill 2011: 207). The writer effortlessly spreads positivity when talking about trees and forests. Trees protect and shelter each other if they are not severely damaged by our ‘bullying’ hands. Eating Dirt is packed with personifications. Rather than providing the readership with explicit comments on natural beauty, Charlotte Gill offers passages to assure the reader’s own personal experience. She makes the audience learn to value nature without explicitly ordering their doing so. Already at the beginning of the novel an introduction to the fascinating wonders of the forest is offered: It “has its seasons, too. In winter it sleeps. In spring […] the soil begins to wake up. The plant world gathers strength. Soon it begins its underground work, knitting and probing and girding itself” (Gill 2011: 17). This personification leaves no doubt that the forest should be perceived as a fellow person. It sleeps, wakes up, gathers strength, knits and probes. This novel shows extraordinary language that immediately captures the readership. Gill also highlights that tree planters treat seedlings like their own babies. They plant them in a certain period “to give our

82 seedlings time to get used to their new environs before the thirsty months set in” (ibid.). Again, a personification is used to spark empathy. Who would not empathize with a thirsty, disoriented baby? Finally, when all seedlings are planted successfully, the workers are overcome by emotions: “We didn’t make millions, and we didn’t cure AIDS. But at least a thousand new trees are breathing” (Gill 2011: 15).

Furthermore, similes are used to evoke clear pictures in the reader’s mind. It is difficult to imagine high numbers or certain facts, but relatable comparisons facilitate this process. For example, one million trees can be imagined as “a tower of tree boxes more than one mile high. With the contents, we could forest five hundred Manhattan city blocks” (Gill 2011: 17). Provided with this information, it is instantly clear what area could be covered with one million trees. Otherwise it is just a high number that we cannot associate anything with. Furthermore, similes also describe the devastation which tree planters face on a daily basis. Here, the similes play with visual aspects. The sentence “a clear-cut resembles a lunar surface” (Gill 2011: 23), is automatically associated with a dull, lifeless and sad sight. Similes also play with our senses, such as, for example, sound perception: “The chainsaws across the valley sound like mad mosquitoes” (Gill 2011: 32). Many similes deal with the topic of organ transplantation to convey a sense of disorientation and the adaption to new environments. This can be observed in the following example: “A planted tree is like a transplanted kidney. It must knit itself into its new environment and grow a mycorrhizal sheath. It must learn to drink and eat and get along with its feisty neighbors” (Gill 2011: 84). In another passage the newly planted trees are compared to the look of a fresh hair transplant, as Gill states, “[y]oung trees dot the valley the way hair grows in after a transplant” (2011: 22).

Additionally, the author works with various structural devices, such as ellipses and anaphora. The depressing sight of clear-cuts is emphasized by repetitions. All the protagonist sees are “flattened woods and stumps, stumps, stumps” (Gill 2011: 56). This statement suggests the immense quantity of logged trees and conveys a sense of helplessness. Parallelisms have the same effect as the following example shows: “[t]rucks going up, trucks going down” (Gill 2011: 22). The environment is damaged in front of the protagonist’s eyes but she cannot do anything about it.

To summarize, Charlotte Gill has to be praised for her extraordinary writing style. She influences her readers who automatically start to appreciate the forests and natural beauty due

83 to literary devices. There is a difference whether one simply states that humans, equipped with logging gear, go on the mountains or whether one choses to express the same content artistically as Gill does: “The loggers crawl the mountains” (2011: 22). Her phrase is extremely powerful. The loggers seem beastly and animalistic, simply, due to the choice of the verb ‘crawl’ which leaves more room for interpretation. It seems as if evil spread on the mountains and, therefore, one word attributes a negative connotation to the humans, depicting them as destructive monsters. This technique is repeatedly applied and perfectly mastered by the writer. The fragility of the forests trigger empathy among the readership, and Gill constantly warns us that “[a] tree can’t run away. Indeed it puts up no defence at all to our saws and axes” (2011: 101). Despite the enormous human annual demand of wood Gill reminds us that the greatest damage is caused by anthropogenic climate change.

8.5 Irony

One rhetorical device that is often played with to generate empathy in eco-fiction is irony. It occurs in various forms and proves to be very effective. Sometimes irony is disguised as a rhetorical question, it is used in an ironic comment from the narrator or appears as a characters’ sarcastic remark. Other times events and plotlines should be read ironically, and through reverse psychology the reader is motivated to do the exact opposite of what is written in the text.

The first example that should be discussed, is Dorian Asher, one of the protagonists in The Back of the Turtle, whose character, actions and statements can be read ironically. Dorian, the head of the biotechnological company ‘Domidion’, represents arrogance and corruption. Throughout the novel his character does not develop. The reader realizes immediately that Dorian’s irresponsible, manipulative behaviour and his careless actions represent the opposite of what would be expected in such a crisis. His greed for power and profit blinds him and guides his thinking and decision making. When the holding ponds of Dorian’s company wash hundreds of millions of gallons of chemical waste into the river system, the CEO is briefed of the situation and its severe extent: “The spill will kill everything in the river. In less than a week the toxins will reach Lake Athabasca. From there the toxins will join the Mackenzie River system and everything will wind up in the Beaufort Sea” (King 2014: 289). Dorian, however, who refers to the environmental catastrophe as ‘screw-up’, is only concerned of the company’s reputation. Not once does he consider the consequences for the animal kingdom, the plant world, the

84 ecosystems and all other victims that will be affected. Dorian’s attitude is perfectly expressed in the following passage:

‘Within a month, the pollution will reach the Arctic Circle’ Dorian put his glass down. ‘Is there a cleanup plan in place?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will it stop the toxins?’ ‘No.’ ‘But we’ll be seen to be trying.’ ‘PR21 is sending two full camera crews.’ Dorian brought the drink to his desk. ‘I bought a new watch yesterday,’ he said, holding out an arm. ‘What do you think?’ ‘A Rolex is always a good choice.’ (King 2014: 290)

Dorian discusses the toxic spill with his assistant. He knows that the clean-up plan will not improve the situation, but as always, Dorian is only concerned about the company’s image. His carelessness is represented in the comment about his watch. Domidion is responsible for an environmental catastrophe that will cause the destruction of numerous ecosystems but the person in charge changes the subject to a material possession. The same irresponsibility and carelessness is expressed a few pages later, when the CEO thinks about the spill: “Yes, Dorian agreed, it was unfortunate, but now was not the right time to panic” (King 2014: 304). Instead of feeling guilty, Dorian trivialises the environmental catastrophe, which is also a humanitarian disaster, as ‘unfortunate’, when he should have chosen terms such as ‘heartbreaking’, ‘absolutely horrible’ or ‘tragic’ instead. Dorian, however, only does this ironically: “It’s terrible, horrific, shocking. Every distressing adjective you could find in a thesaurus and more. Blah, blah, blah” (King 2014: 365). The addition of the final sentence makes it obvious that Dorian does not really believe that but says so because it is expected of him. His honest thoughts are repeatedly provided. He is convinced that “the occasional spill is the price we pay for cheap energy” (King 2014: 305). Despite the death of animals, plants and people, Dorian does not understand the turmoil. He argues that chemical spills happen all the time, so what is the big deal? The CEO’s superficiality is reflected in his arrogant thoughts. Even though Dorian is incapable of regret, he perceives environmental disasters as disruptive. He knows that they are bad for his business (cf. King 2014: 322). Dorian’s obsession with profit can only be satisfied by clearing the company’s good name. He, therefore, supports the clean-up plan, which he knows to be useless, but it still offers a convincing ‘show’. Dorian tries to save face through media manipulation. By lying and holding back information, the CEO tries to calm the public

21 PR is an acronym for ‘Public Relations’. 85 to be able to focus on his main goal again: making profit. After all, he is convinced that “[i]f you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth” (King 2014: 306). Due to past experiences, Domidion’s CEO knows that the leak will soon disappear from the media, and as predicted, it really happens at the end of the novel. When the Canadian prime minister is attacked, headlines about Domidion International vanish from the press. Once again, Dorian and the company are not made accountable for the disaster they have caused. Lucky for them, they will disappear off the public’s radar until the next time.

Another example in which irony can be found is Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. In the novel, global warming has caused the melting of the Arctic ice caps and a change in the weather patterns. Despite warnings and extensive research beforehand, people reacted as if they were surprised by the consequences. This is reflected in Snowman’s ironical thoughts: “Yet now that it was happening, everyone was indignant and annoyed, as though the longer, colder winters, the lost springs, and the tentative summers were somehow an unexpected personal affront” (King 2014: 11). The people’s inaction is criticised through sarcasm.

Furthermore, Gabriel, the main protagonist in Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle feels guilty for an environmental catastrophe that he caused22 in the past. Due to the creation of a chemical virus, a river system was polluted, which killed numerous animals, plants and Natives in a reservation. When Gabriel travels to the abandoned place and falls in love with one of the few locals, he struggles with his past. How should he tell the person who lost all friends and family members that he is the one responsible for the tragedy? Irony is used to convey his inner struggle.

Hi, I’m Gabriel Quinn. I killed your family and friends. I killed my sister and her child. I destroyed the river and the forest and all life in the ocean for as far as you can see. Surprise, I’m the author of all that destruction. Are you attracted to me? How about we fall in love, have children, and live happily ever after. (King 2014: 337)

In Charlotte Gill’s novel, Eating Dirt, irony is used to criticize consumerism. People’s extravagant lifestyle mirrors their exploitative behaviour towards the environment. Without reflection, humans waste paper napkins, print out emails unnecessarily or use tree extracts in toothpaste, shampoos and other cosmetic products. We simply refuse to consider the number of trees that has to be logged for the production of such goods. Gill criticizes human arrogance

22 This event will be discussed in more detail in the following subchapter. 86 by ironically inviting them to, “[k]eep on truckin’, everyone. Crank out more Kleenex, more Starbucks cups, more IKEA coffee tables. By all means, please, mow down the planet. World, we’ve got you covered” (Gill 2011: 32). Of course, the exact opposite is desired. This technique is called reverse psychology: readers will hopefully react and reflect on consumerism and on the products that they use.

Despite people’s gratefulness towards tree planters for ‘saving’ the forests, the irony of the profession is repeatedly highlighted in the novel. The Canadian government decides a maximum number of trees that can be logged annually. However, this number can be increased through reforestation. Thus, logging companies employ tree planters in order to profit financially. Ironically, the tree planters exist to justify the ever-growing destruction of unspoiled landscape. One problem that remains is that reforestation reduces the quality of the forests. Gill notes that humans “can replace the trees but not necessarily the forest” (2011: 225). Artificial, engineered forests are less successful in terms of carbon storage, and Gill sarcastically jokes that “[d]eep rainforest [is] replaced with low-fat soil” (2011: 159). According to the narrator, it is easily detectable whether a forest is recycled or natural, but humans refuse to wait for four hundred years to allow a natural forest to grow back (cf. Gill 2011: 161).

8.6 Imagery to Describe Nature

Canadian landscapes have always inspired local writers. This is confirmed by Soper and Bradley who claim that “Canadian landscapes and their apparent distinctiveness (whether understood in positive or negative terms) have fascinated writers and critics throughout the history of literature in Canada” (2013: xxiv). To describe nature, writers often make use of imagery to achieve the desired effect. This way, mental images appear in the readers’ minds and people can ‘see’ what the authors are trying to explain. Thus, a topic can be grasped more easily and issues become more tangible. Weik von Mossner points out that imagery creates environments “that we can see, hear, smell and feel without them ever having been real in any material sense” (2016: 541). Nature seems real and that automatically triggers empathy. It has been proven that mental pictures are highly successful as they stick to the recipients for a longer period of time. This is confirmed by Weik von Mossner who states that “[e]mpirical studies report that mental imagery is what people tend to remember about their reading of literary texts and that this correlates closely with their emotional responses to such texts” (2016: 540).

The images that are created remind the reader of a healthy, beautiful environment on the one hand or destroy the sense of harmony on the other hand. Often, colours are used to intensify one’s imagination. In King’s novel the beauty of the past is remembered. Before the toxic spill, the area “had been covered with orange starfish, black mussels, and purple urchins. Crimson crabs had scuttered” (King 2014: 5). The narrator further refers to green sea anemones and all the colours of the ocean. However, when the dam collapses and the chemicals leak into the water, nobody can keep the “dirty bronze tailings [from] pouring into a glacial blue river” (King 2014: 303). The adjectives of colour are very powerful in this description. The brown sludge that pollutes the crystal-clear water can clearly be imagined; with the help of adjectives mental images become more intense. Throughout The Back of the Turtle, death of nature is depicted through imagery. The readers are offered small details that invite them to feel for the environment. One example is the description of Domidion International’s headquarters. The company’s main building has ten storeys, but all of them are underground. These ‘subfloors’ symbolize the human violation of their natural surroundings. People expand their territory as if they owned the planet. So, without consideration, ten floors are dug into the ground. Furthermore, I would like to draw attention to ‘GreenSweep’, the defoliant that caused an environmental disaster. Imagery is used to show the extent of the tragedy. As the dilution ratio was wrong, the modified bacterium, which was used to clear undergrowth to accelerate the construction of a pipeline, left a path of destruction. Very powerful images are created in conversations of the remaining Natives. Mara shares the Natives’ experience about ‘The Ruin’ with Gabriel: “He hasn’t told you how the river ran bright green that morning? How the people sickened and died? How they continued to die in the weeks and months after? How the turtles and every living thing in the river’s path were destroyed?“ (King 2014: 248). Again, the mental images are intensified through adjectives of colour. The blue river is polluted with a bright green substance, and we can easily imagine the resulting chaos. Desperation spreads and people are tormented by pain and death. Before ‘That Bad Day’ Samaritan Bay was famous for the sea turtles that buried their eggs on the beach. Of course, after the catastrophe, the animals steer clear of the toxic water and “the only sign that the turtles had ever been to the bay were the bleached skeletons that piled up on shore after each storm” (King 2014: 159). The marine life met the same destiny as the inhabitants of Smoke River Reserve, and this is brutally illustrated through the piles of turtle skeletons on the beach. The first river that was poisoned by the chemicals is called Kali Creek, where “[e]verything GreenSweep touched had died. Trees, undergrowth, animals, fish. Everything” (King 2014: 322). One day, Gabriel visits the site and

88 is terrified by what he encounters: already at the descent to the canyon “the colour shrank away and died” (King 2014: 403). Now the reader imagines a grey landscape that symbolizes lifelessness and decay. Thus, the sentence serves as foreshadowing for what Gabriel is about to encounter. The scientist is surrounded by bones, which are well preserved: “Once he came upon a cluster of bones that might have been a family of rabbits” (King 2014: 403). He further finds skeletons of deer families and even tiny human skulls. Gabriel knows that he is responsible for this and is consumed with guilt. In this passage, the reader’s empathy with nature mingles with the empathy for the protagonist. Both seem helpless and lost. According to Mossner, empathy is increased when being offered a scientist’s perspective: "Seeing the situation through the eyes of a scientist who fully understands its horrific implications, readers are invited to empathize with his feeling of shock, disgust, and anger” (Weik von Mossner 2017:78). At the end of the novel, the first signs of life reappear in Samaritan Bay. After a long time, the environment starts to recover and the healing process begins. The inhabitants spot the first small fish, crabs, marine algae, birds, pelicans and more, and they celebrate the arrival of every creature. The first baby turtles hatch on the beach and, slowly, the wounds begin to heal.

Another example is Charlotte Gill’s Eating Dirt, in which the environmental degradation is also conveyed through imagery. In the novel, the narrator reflects on the beauty of untouched nature and laments the destruction of once well-functioning ecosystems. A logging scene starts with metaphors that increase discomfort: “The clouds are bruised and swollen [...] Heavy logging machinery sits dormant all around, skidders and yarders like hulking metal crabs” (Gill 2011: 1). The reader sees the fuss on the mountains before their inner eyes, and the logging roads that “cross-cut the landscape like old surgical scars” (Gill 2011: 22) are visually described. The reader can easily picture the logging routes that are compared to human arteries; there are “main lines branching out into fine traceries” (Gill 2011: 3). As we know what human blood vessels look like, we conjure a mental image of a forest that is divided by thousands of logging roads. Furthermore, empathy is felt when the narrator stresses that the biggest clear-cut can easily be seen from space, which cues the readers to feel threatened. Other passages that visually refer to clear cuts as ‘wooden carnage’ captivate the audience’s attention. One example is provided in the following quotation: “the wooden carnage was shocking. The skin of the earth pulled back, revealing a sad organic gore” (Gill 2011: 46). At other times, Gill involves sensual perception to bring her message across. According to Weik von Mossner, a “skilful use of sensory imagery […] ensures vivid imagined perception“ (2017: 48), and thus causes an emotional experience for the reader. The scholar further notes that the description of natural surroundings that allow

89 readers “a vivid impression of their aural, olfactory and tactile qualities is often the hallmark of nature writing“ (Weik von Mossner 2016: 541). Exemplary is Gill’s inclusion of sounds. She refers to the ‘buzzing’ of the machines and the ‘hissing’ air (cf. Gill 2011: 1).

8.7 Giving Voice to Nature

Many works of environmental literature focus on a form of degradation in the plant world. As already discussed earlier, it is very effective to provide nature with a voice as it facilitates the reader’s understanding. A narrator who tells the story from nature’s point of view, helps the common reader to imagine what nature feels like when it faces human destruction. In literature, planet Earth is often metaphorically represented as a person. Thus, it suffers every time when people log a tree, pollute a river or poison an ecosystem. To stick with the metaphor, the Earth is wounded, bruised and scarred. As people tend to react more strongly when they are emotionally attached to the protagonists, writers use this metaphor to get their message across. By offering the planet’s point of view in form of a plant’s perspective, the reader perceives nature as the story’s ‘hero’ and feels with it.

One example where nature is given a voice is Lee Marcale’s “Cedar Sings”. This is a Native story that deals with exploitative logging. The short story’s protagonists are Cedar, a tree, and Raven, a bird. While the former sings for the Indigenous people in Squamish territory, the latter is a shape shifter who often visits Cedar and sits on the ‘skin’ of her branch. Cedar can be understood as “an individualized and anthropomorphized plant which metonymically stands for the vulnerable West-Coast environment, and Raven, [represents] the West Coast trickster- figure” (Löschnigg 2020a: 278). Cedar is quite emotional. She has children and suffers when one of them dies: “a branch snaps. It lands on one of Cedar’s saplings below, crushing the life out of her child” (Marcale 2010: 71). Cedar also sighs, thinks, weeps, and has several other human traits. The reader identifies with her and empathizes with the vulnerability of plants in general. As Maria Löschnigg claims, in the text “flora and fauna move centre stage while human characters constitute the – albeit threatening – backdrop” (2020a: 278).

In the story, coasts and mountains are deforested which triggers Raven’s anger as the Natives do not protect their natural surroundings anymore. Cedar sings to the Squamish people who always heard her songs in the past. These days, however, the people are alienated and distracted

90 from their environment by new inventions such as stereos, televisions and other state-of-the-art devices. Raven reminds her friend that the humans cannot hear her anymore. While empathy is felt for nature, humans are criticised: “They don’t tell stories anymore […] Land, water, fish, timber is all up for grabs and the people just stay glued to their TVs” (Maracle 2010b: 70). Nature faces ‘genocide’ but the people have lost their connection with their surroundings and refuse to help. Raven points out bitterly that environmental concern was “traded for an iPod” (Maracle 2010b: 71). The treatment of nature mirrors the human lifestyle. Raven laments the people’s carelessness and the forest’s poor state. Instead of appreciating and celebrating their natural surroundings, the “white guys treat their machines as if they were sacred” (Maracle 2010b: 74). The focus of attention has shifted. Mountains are blast away to create straight streets and as the people cannot hear the trees’ songs anymore, they do not protect them from the logging machines. The original forests are constantly minimised, not only by humans but also because of climate change: “Drought plagued the rain forests […] [and] rain pulled the earth from the mountains and sent it to sea. Through it all you screamed and cried but no one heard” (Marcale 2010b: 72). Raven tells Cedar about a recent discovery: while watching TV – ironically, not even the trickster-figure can resist the temptation – she found out about a new machine that amplifies sound so that even white people can hear the plants. The settlers are deeply shocked that plants can talk and have feelings just like humans. Raven and Cedar decide to steal the amplifier from the humans, and Raven wires it to the crying trees. Suddenly the people’s attention is shifted to the forests and all members of First Nations hear the trees’ screams. The Natives immediately interrupt what they are doing and rush to protect the forests. At the end of the story, Cedar dies but hope is implied: as the people’s eyes have been opened, they stop the logging companies. They will hopefully rethink their lifestyles, continue their fight in the future and save Cedar’s grandchildren.

9 Conclusion

In the past decades, environmental literature has gained great popularity. This genre raises people’s awareness about the global crisis and is, therefore, highly appreciated by activists and environmentalists. People have always been taught through art, both consciously and subconsciously. Eco-fiction has the advantage of conveying compassion for nature in a subtle way: firstly, the readers are not explicitly addressed and thus do not feel personally attacked, and secondly, generating empathy is a more effective asset compared to scientific data. The

91 characters’ traumatizing experiences in the stories serve as reminders and wake-up calls of what lies ahead if people refuse to protect planet Earth. Often, human beings feel superior to nature, which leads to an exploitative and careless behaviour towards animal species, natural resources and ecosystems. This is highly criticized in environmental works. The main aim of eco- literature is to reach the readers emotionally and to create an appreciation for natural surroundings. Readers are cued to feel threatened by environmental disasters, and in the best- case scenario the reader’s sensation of unease and worry leads to action. People are encouraged to rethink their lifestyles and to reflect on what they can personally contribute to protect their surroundings. Of course, the writers’ ideas guide the readers subconsciously.

In this thesis, I have attempted to demonstrate various examples of how the readers’ empathy for nature can be triggered. Therefore, thirteen Canadian works of eco-fiction were chosen, and their most striking passages were analysed. Many environmental stories focus on animals. Regarding this topic, one method to trigger the reader’s compassion is through paratexts and visual elements. Illustrations as in Setons “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow” and paratext, such as family trees in Gowdy’s The White Bone, guide the reader’s perception. Additional information is offered, which helps the narratives’ recipients to identify with the animals. Furthermore, authors use anthropomorphism or anti-anthropomorphism to depict animals human-like or to renounce human traits completely, depending on which method is more successful for the situation. Further, the narrative perspective has a great effect on the representation of animals. Often, the reader is provided with direct access to the non-human protagonists’ feelings and consciousness, and the animals become focalizers. Other animal stories shake the readers emotionally by visual depictions of murder or death. In Marty’s The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek, for example, the brutal killing of bears in National Parks is emphasized, and sometimes, animal stories contain passages in which human behaviour is explicitly criticized. One recurring theme in Canadian environmental literature is the Natives’ attachment to nature. This interconnectedness occurs between all forms of living organisms and the Indigenous Peoples. Lee Maracle’s stories are examples that prove the First Nations’ appreciation of nature and the tribe members’ respect for their surroundings. Other works of eco-fiction deal with pollution or forms of environmental degradation. The authors can evoke empathetic responses by situating characters in dystopian, apocalyptic settings, as, for example, Margaret Atwood does in Oryx and Crake, or by reminding the audience of a harmonic past, as in Charlotte Gill’s Eating Dirt. Writers often choose to play with language and catch the readers’ attention through stylistic and rhetorical devices. This is applied in the short story “The

Tent”. One device that is often used is irony, as Thomas King shows in The Back of the Turtle. In addition to that, the importance of imagery is emphasized. Especially adjectives of colour and very detailed descriptions help the reader to mentally imagine damaged landscapes and signs of destruction. Such imagery aims at disturbing and worrying the target audience. Powerful imagery could encourage activism. Another technique to evoke an emotional response from the reader is by giving a voice to nature. In Lee Maracle’s story “Cedar Sings” a tree’s perspective is offered, which increases the audience’s immersion into the story as it allows the reader to relate to the cedar’s suffering more easily.

Eco-literature aims at raising consciousness about the environment to prevent further damage and human destruction. Due to our planet’s poor state, the exclusion of this genre from literary studies seems rather obsolete and irresponsible. Hopefully, people will become aware of their actions and reconnect with nature, which would lead to a more respectful behaviour towards all life on Earth. In the meantime, writers will hopefully continue to produce works of eco- literature to influence and sensitise their readership.

10 Bibliography 10.1 Primary Sources

Atwood, Margaret (2003). Oryx and Crake. London: Virago.

Atwood, Margaret (2006). “The Tent”. In: Margaret Atwood, ed. The Tent. New York: Bloomsbury. 143-146.

Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited.

Cariou, Warren (2012). “An Athabasca Story“. In: Lake - Journal of Arts and Environment 7: 70-75.

Coleridge, Samuel T. (2008). “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, in Seven Parts”. In: Michael Gamer and Dahlia Porter, eds. Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800. Peterborough: Broadview Press. 51-72.

Gill, Charlotte (2011). Eating Dirt. Vancouver: Greystone Books.

Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picador.

King, Thomas (2014). The Back of the Turtle. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers.

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Maracle, Lee (2010c). “Goodbye Snauq”. In: Lee Maracle, ed. First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style. Penticton: Theytus Books. 13-27.

Marty, Sid (2008). The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited.

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12 Register of Illustrations

Fig. 1: Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picator. (p. iiiv)

Fig. 2: Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picator. (p. ix)

Fig. 3: Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picator. (p. ix)

Fig. 4: Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picator. (p. x)

Fig. 5: Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picator. (p. xiii)

Fig. 6: Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. (p. 36) Illustrated by T. M. Shortt

Fig. 7: Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. (p. 85) Illustrated by T. M. Shortt

Fig. 8: Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. (p. 84) Illustrated by T. M. Shortt

Fig. 9: Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. (p. 120) Illustrated by T. M. Shortt

Fig. 10: Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. (p. 125) Illustrated by T. M. Shortt

Fig. 11: Bodsworth, Fred (1963/1954). Last of the Curlews. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. (p. 57) Illustrated by T. M. Shortt

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Fig. 12: Seton, Ernest T. (1977/ 1898). “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow”. In: Ernest Thomas Seton, ed. Wild Animals I Have Known. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. 47-68. (p. 53)

Fig. 13: Seton, Ernest T. (1977/ 1898). “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow”. In: Ernest Thomas Seton, ed. Wild Animals I Have Known. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. 47-68. (p. 53)

Fig. 14: Seton, Ernest T. (1977/ 1898). “Silverspot. The Story of a Crow”. In: Ernest Thomas Seton, ed. Wild Animals I Have Known. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. 47-68. (p. 54)

Fig. 15: Gowdy, Barbara (1998). The White Bone. New York: Picator. (p. viii, ix)

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13 Appendix 13.1 Illustrations 13.1.1 The White Bone

Complete Map of Barbara Gowdy’s The White Bone:

Fig. 15

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