POSTCOLONIAL SPACES: AN ECO-CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE OF QURATUL AIN HAIDER’S FIREFLIES IN THE MIST

Abstract

The relationship between man and his surrounding in literary criticism is a newly emerged field. The importance of environment and surroundings in literary works has been identified separately by the critics and it has been coined as a new term Ecocriticism. Post-colonialism is a term which is used on a broad scale in literary theory as a response to colonization. Post-colonialism brings to surface the social, economical and cultural exploitation of the subjugated people by the colonial powers. It led towards postcolonial issues like identity loss, diasporas, marginalization, binaries of Us and Other of the natives. In literary criticism both theories i.e. Ecocriticism and Postcolonialism in their combine approach have emerged a new theory as Postcolonial Ecocriticism. The consolidate approach of these poles apart theories in a literary work studies the environment and physical settings as a composite body based on humans, place, landscapes in a colonized land of Sub-continent by the colonizers. It brings to consciousness about the relationship of human and non-human that influence each other. It has been examined through the current study that the colonial tenure has affected not only the human but also non-human, controlling over land and its recourses, leaving unrecoverable environmental issues even after colonization. The novel Fireflies in the Mist by Quratul Ain Haider exhibits the entire milieu controlled by the British as colonizers exploiting the human and non-human. The current study investigates the novel Ecocritically in the perspective of Postcolonialism, resulted the subjective interests and ecocritical channels emancipate the marginalized characters from objective position.