Environmental subjectivities in children's literature: A plea for green world for children

Abstract

This study entitled “Environmental Subjectivities in Children's Literature: A Plea for Green World for Children”hasexamined how four texts from diverseliterary-cultural traditions namelyJohanna Spyri’s Heidi, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, Mark Twain’s The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn, and Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies construct fictional environmental subjects and offer readers environmental subject positions engraved with contemporary environmental ideologies. This study has considered environmental subjectivities as issues which have access to environmental discourses and dynamicallycreate themselves as ecological matters. Environmental subjectivities are formed by studying children’s emotionalassociations with their environment, everyday engagement and understandings of and knowledge of their own environment especially nature. This is a procedure of environmental socialization, the individual never being out-of-the-way in an independent environment, but boundlesslywinning in contact with the surrounding world. The green world signifies jungle, land, farms, parks, gardens, and entire verdure – the basics of earth, water, air and growing things that occurautonomous of human creation, though they may have beenformed into forms of human intention. Thus, the representation of nature in the primary texts is the major concern of the study to foreground environmental subjectivities as a plea for green world for children. By applying ecocritical perspective, the research aimed to explore the ways the texts construct, advocate, and contest particular environmental subjectivities. In order to examine environmental subjectivities, the research has used John Hannigan's idea developed in his Environmental Sociology (1995). The study of environmental sociology as the subfield of sociology took an important part of study in 1970s in response to the emergence of 1960s environmental movement. Hannigan in his book Environmental Sociology, focuses on 'socio environmental interaction' which is human interaction with the natural environment. To analyze this interaction, he has developed the typology of environmental discourses, which frames into three following environmental discourses: a) arcadian discourse- nature has invaluable aesthetic and transcendent value, b) ecosystem discourse- human interfering in biotic communities upset the stability of nature, and, c) environmental justice discourse- all people have basic right of life to live and work in a good environment. The research has also appliedchildren’s literary criticism to support ecocritical theories. It has usedPeter Hunt’s idea of understanding children’s literature which argues that the children’s books are used for various purposes at different times- for new things than most books are. Such books have essential role in shaping their lives. With this assumption, the representation of children in the children literatureis analyzed in the economic, psychological, educational, and personal context in which they are created. Based on this analysis, this study assumed that children's books with environmental subjectivities evoke the common sense of astonishment at the natural world, make children to meet at the new surroundings, new environment, new families which all contributes to symbiotic bonding between environment and children. This involvementmakes children aware, and environmentally socializewith both the present and future generations. In accordance to the explorationassumed, the texts express the delicacies and intricacies of children's visit with the environment, and expose the techniques of creating green world for children. The ideologies and perception about the environment represented in the texts determine environmental subjectivities help children understand human cognition about the positive environmental change in the future. Thus, the study has attempted to explicate various meanings and associations by deploying ideas developed by ecocritical, and child and adolescent scholars such as John Hannigan, Lawrence Buell, Peter Hunt, and Joseph L. Zornado. The ways in which humans involve with the environment have continuouslycarried an amusing source of materials for the authors and critics of children's literature. Writings on these issues convey the knowledge of natural ways of life of all living organisms including human beings. Currently, readers are challenged with a multiplicity of thoughts, principles, and sentiments that offerstories about human assignation with the environment. The four children books as the primary texts under scrutinyare selected from around the second half of the 19th century as the writings of this period have reflected upon issues of environment and childhood. The books from diverse cultural traditions of two male writers with boy protagonists in each and two female writers having girl protagonists of almost similar age group are the proposed importance to explore subjectivities. The plots of all the selected books revolve around the children’s development in different social, cultural, and environmental contexts. The themes of growth in nature, the bond of human and other species, and environmental justice contribute to explore the issues of child and environment. Heidi and Mary, the girl protagonists ofHeidi and The Secret Garden respectively, for example, enjoy with nature and befriend with other nonhuman animals and birds whereas Huck and Tom, the protagonists of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Water Babies respectively are the victims of the environmental injustice, and they struggle a lot to grow and they grow freely in nature. Children startknowing their civilization and its connection to nature from very early period of their lives. This knowledge could be developed both consciously and unconsciously. Children’s literature that deals mainly with the natural environmentis asignificant site for the raising of children. The mattersit deals should be examined and understood from the environmental tenets it involves. Greening the socialization of children is measuredas an important part of the multidimensional determinationspresentlyongoing in saving and supporting the environment. So, children's engagement with the environmentmakes children aware, and environmentally socialize with both the present and future generations.