Shalini Ghosh
Volume-XIV, Issue-III, April 2026
Volume-XIV, Issue-III, April 2026 | ||
Received: 07.04.2026 | Accepted: 27.04.2026 | |||
Published Online: 30.04.2026 | Page No: | |||
DOI: 10.64031/pratidhwanitheecho.vol.14.issue.03W. | ||||
Ruins of War, Bodies of Memory: Trans-Corporeality and Material
Ecocriticism in Funny Boy, Noontide Toll and Lord of the Flies
Shalini Ghosh, Independent
Research Scholar, West Bengal, India | |
This
paper will discuss the convergence between ecocriticism and trans-corporeality
in the post-ethnic conflict era as manifested in Funny boy by Shyam
Selvadurai, Lord of the Flies by William Golding as well as Noontide
Toll by Romesh Gunesekera. Ecocriticism looks at how nature and the
environment have been represented in literature whereas trans-corporeality
looks at the relationship between the human body and the non-human world. The
contemporary literature is mostly focused on the human effect of war and the
natural world is considered a passive setting. Both Funny Boy by Shyam
Selvadurai and Noontide Toll by Romesh Gunesekera focus on the effects
of conflict, but one focuses on the perceived Civil War and the other on ethnic
conflict. Nevertheless, instead of representing the war as such, both novels
concentrate on the post-war events, discussing the consequences that the war
had on the people and society. According to this study, there is a gap in the
literature that is hard to fill: the role of the environment as a force behind
the delivery of trauma and historical change is under-explored.
This paper contends that nature is a
potent narrative tool by examining how this compelling storytelling tool is
used in Funny Boy, Noontide Toll and Lord of the Flies to destroy
the environment. It lets readers experience the depths of war by using the
transformation of landscape as an element instead of only through the lens of
human lead protagonists or working as first-hand witness. This style creates a
stronger bond between the reader and the setting, which emphasizes the
long-lasting trauma of war on the soil and the human soul. However, the works
of William Golding, Lord of the Flies, a fiction book in the context of
the third world war that is being expected, demonstrate the fact of how
seriously nature can affect human psychology. The narrative exposes the
psychological decline of a collection of children, who are stuck on an island,
through the prism of ecocriticism and trans corporeality in that nature is a
key factor in the development of a group of children into madness. By using
material ecocriticism and trans-corporeality, this paper shows how the
environment will transform into a manifestation of memory and trauma. It
assumes that the natural world is not a mere spectator but it is engaged in and
mirrors the psychological and historical changes resulting due to the war. In
this perspective, the paper demonstrates the deep symbiosis of human and
environmental change and provides insight into the impact of post-conflict
landscapes in the modern war-related literature. | |
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