Humans and Animals in Postcolonial Ecocriticism

John Doyle's A Swinish Multitude, 7th October 1835. [1] 

When studying ecoliterature such as The Hungry Tide, Oil on Water, and Oryx and Crake, questions about postcolonialism arise. In our seminars, we specifically focused on the tension between postcolonialism and ecocriticism when specific races or nations, or humans in general, are associated with animals.

For example, during the 18th Century the Irish were seen as animals, something Jonathan Swift's satirical essay A Modest Proposal demonstrates. He proposes that the solution to overpopulation, underemployment, and the undernourishment of many children in poor Irish families is to send the children off aged one to be a part of the meat industry. Through this hyperbolic suggestion, Swift is highlighting how the society of the time treated the Irish as if they were animals, fit to be farmed and eaten like chickens, cows, sheep etc.

Edmund Burke, on the other hand, uses the phrase"swinish multitude" to describe Parisians not in satire, but in what he perceives to be the truth in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. When discussing the implications of this phrase, Darren Howard suggests "the association of some groups with animals correlates with their social standing [...] When humanity is defined as the limit of the moral sphere, the oppressed are associated with animals in order to legitimise their oppression." [2]

Such a view is problematic in postcolonial criticism: we view animals as hierarchically lower than ourselves, and so calling a person an animal suggests they too are inferior. Yet, for ecocritics, the idea that animals are inferior is problematic too. They argue that we have to treat animals better in order to treat humans better.

This idea is one that Howard suggests began to come prevalent in the same period as Burke's infamous comment:

 The majority of the children's literature of the period argues that children ought to treat non-humans with kindness so that they learn how to treat all of their inferiors with kindness; non-human animals are an object lesson in the dynamics of class relations. [...] Recent studies centering on the cultural significance of animals in Britain during this period by Keith Thomas, David Perkins, and Christine Kenyon-Jones have documented how the movement for animal welfare originated in the late eighteenth century, and have connected a concern for animals to humanitarian movements in general. [3] 

However, the period still viewed the world through a hierarchical lens: salves and animals are still seen as inferior, even if they are treated with "kindness". 

Animal phrases or idioms today do not just demonstrate such a hierarchical view of the world, but they also demonstrate our views towards certain animals as far from positive. Indeed, Nick Haslam, when discussing his studies on the meanings of such animals phrases, says: 

First, and perhaps not surprisingly, intensely reviled animals such as snakes, leeches and rats make more insulting metaphors. When people use these metaphors to refer to a person they do not imply that the person is literally like these animals. Rather they transfer the disgust felt towards the animal to the person. [4]

There are many phrases such as 'snake in grass' and 'pond life' that when attributed demonstrate this transference of disgust towards an animals onto a human. The idea of snakes as deceptive originates from the Biblical depiction of the snake in the garden of Eden, adding to the connotations of disgust. When we use 'pond life' to describe someone as stupid or foolish, this can be said to say more about our opinions of the creatures who inhabit ponds than it does about the person we are attributing this term to. 

Such a view is not only damaging to our fellow humans, but to our fellow animals, as we are, after all, animals too, something ecocritics and promoters of animal ethics argue we should remember. 

[1] John Doyle, A Swinish Multitude, 7th October 1835. <http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw217096/A-Swinish-Multitude> [accessed 22nd April 2017]. 
[2] Darren Howard 'Necessary Fictions: The "Swinish Multitude" and the Rights of Man', Studies in Romanticism, 47 (2008) 161-178 (pp.162-162).
[3] Ibid, pp.162 & 165. 
[4] Nick Haslam, 'Why it's so offensive when we call people animals', The Conversation, April 18th 2017 <http://theconversation.com/why-its-so-offensive-when-we-call-people-animals-76295> [accessed 18th April 2017]. 

Bibliography 

Bingham, John, 'Calling animals pets is insulting academic claim', The Telegraph, April 28th 2011 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8479391/Calling-animals-pets-is-insulting-academics-claim.html> [accessed 18th April 2017]. 

Doyle, John, A Swinish Multitude, 7th October 1835. <http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw217096/A-Swinish-Multitude> [accessed 22nd April 2017]. 

Haslam, Nick, 'Why it's so offensive when we call people animals', The Conversation, April 18th 2017 <http://theconversation.com/why-its-so-offensive-when-we-call-people-animals-76295> [accessed 18th April 2017]. 

Howard, Darren 'Necessary Fictions: The "Swinish Multitude" and the Rights of Man', Studies in Romanticism, 47 (2008) 161-178. 

Huggan, Graham and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (Oxon: Routledge, 2009). 

Sopher, Kate, What is Nature? (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995). 

Swift, Joanthan A Modest Proposal (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 2008). <http://www.secret-satire-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Jonathan-Swift-A-Modest-Proposal.pdf> [accessed 22nd April 2017]. 

Can Fiction Successfully Open up the Topic of the Environmental Crisis?

In his article for the Guardian Amitav Ghosh suggests that there is a lack of fiction which successfully opens up the conversation about the Anthropocene or environmental crisis. He argues that the technical language of climate change and the tradition of the arts and humanities may be a reason for this. Furthermore he suggests that our desires for the products and commodities that contribute towards climate change are not due to what they are made of, but rather the images they conjure up. Ghosh suggests that these images are the result of the arts and humanities, and so in fact encourage what literature should be challenging. 

While we think of our current literature proudly due to it's 'self-awareness', Ghosh believes that in the future it will be known as the "Great Derangement".[1] He introduces the idea that realist novel is ironic: it's attempt to portray things realistically essentially conceals reality. Ghosh also exposes the problem with magical realistic and surrealist novel as they "rob them of precisely the quality that makes them so urgently compelling – which is that they are actually happening on this Earth, at this time."[2]

To examine his claim I will look at three texts which attempt open up the topic of climate change or environmental crisis.

First is Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation. Being a fan of Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, I was looking forward to opening this novel. However, what I found upon opening it disappointed. For me it didn't engage and I did not feel motivated to read on and so I did not finish the novel. Whether my lack of motivation was partly down to the number of other university books I was reading, or purely the novel itself, I cannot say, but the fact that All Over Creation did not tempt me to read on suggests a sense of failure in successfully creating a dialogue between the reader and the text on the topic of the environmental crisis.

Perhaps the topic of seeds is not as tangible or as pressing to readers as other topics on the environmental crisis are. However, Ozeki's attempt to open up a discussion on the importance of knowledge about seeds is a crucial one as to whoever controls them, controls our food and thus life. Yet, this attempt to talk about seeds can be seen to be overshadowed by the theme of relationships, which was the vehicle for the plot. Ultimately I think that All Over Creation is an example of a novel that tries to open up a conversation about the environmental crisis, but somewhere in its 400 pages, this attempt gets lost and swallowed up and thus fails.

The next novel, however, is one that Ghosh suggests is successful. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is an apocalyptic novel that reveals a possible future if we are to continue treating the planet as we have been. The Road uses a lot of biblical imagery, however in placing itself in the apocalyptic genre, The Road  also takes on a biblical genre. While in ancient culture there are many types of apocalyptic literature, biblical apocalyptic literature distinguishes itself from Greek or Roman equivalents through being concerned with applicability. David Helm, commenting on Leon Morris' suggestion, says that:

Interestingly, the Jewish and Greco-Roman counterparts in the genre of apocalypse were not all that concerned with contemporary applicability in their use of the genre [...] The kind of apocalypse one finds in the biblical record is very different. Biblical apocalypse is intimately concerned with the ethics of the here and now. [3]

Similarly, The Road makes us aware of an eventuality of our behaviour. Through the relationship between father and son, McCarthy presents a very anthropocentric narrative that prompts us to look to our own future and then back at how we can alter our behaviour now. This is why The Road is so powerful: it manipulates our own self-interest into an examination of how our behaviour is affecting the world. In this sense, Cormac McCarthy is successful in opening up a conversation about the environmental crisis.

Rather than a novel In-Flight Entertainment is a collection of short stories that deal mainly with the theme of suffering. Again, this theme of suffering plays to a sense of narcissism in the reader. However, In-Flight Entertainment's success stems from its surreptitious approach to opening up a dialogue about the environmental crisis. As a collection of short stories, not all of these deal directly with global warming or other environmental issues. Instead, some stories act as a metaphor and so it does not overtly challenge the reader. Unlike other eco-fiction, I did not feel bombarded or forced into a certain position on the environment. Thus each story subtlety tries to bring about a change of consciousness towards the environmental crisis, or to address particular obstacles to thinking seriously about climate change. In this sense, In-Flight Entertainment is successful in creating a dialogue about the environmental crisis as it does so gently and subtlety.

In conclusion we can see how using plot as a vehicle to discuss environmental issues can be counterproductive, and in fact drown the conversation out. Yet, we can also see two successful ways of creating a dialogue about the environmental crisis: firstly using the reader's own self-interest to create self-reflection and secondly, a more subtle approach that looks at challenging certain perceptions that can be obstacles in opening up a conversation about climate change and other environmental issues.

[1] Amitav Ghosh, 'Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?', The Guardian, 28 October, 2016 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/28/amitav-ghosh-where-is-the-fiction-about-climate-change-> [accessed 19 February 2017].
[2] Ibid.
[3] David Helm, Daniel For You, (U.K.:he Good Book Company, 2015), p.197.

Bibliography

Ghosh, Amitav, 'Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?', The Guardian, 28 October, 2016 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/28/amitav-ghosh-where-is-the-fiction-about-climate-change-> [accessed 19 February 2017].

Helm, David, Daniel For You, (U.K.: The Good Book Company, 2015).

Ozeki, Ruth, All Over Creation, (London: Picador, 2003).

McCarthy, Cormac, The Road (London: Picador, 2007).

Simpson, Helen, In-Flight Entertainment, (London: Vintage, 2010). 

The Three Gorges Dam Project: an Environmental Success or Failure?

The history of China has, as Jonathan Spence suggests, been dominated by "tale[s] of environmental battles"[1] and the victorious heroes who have overcomes these struggles. The epitome of these heroes is Yu the Great. The founding father of the Xia dynasty, he remains immortalised in Chinese folklore and history as the man who tamed the floods by dredging and channelling the rivers, and by creating levees and dams.

Jade sculpture 'Yu the Great Taming the Waters', 1787. [2]

The Three Gorges Dam carries on this tradition of flood control, but through the use of modern technology and engineering. The Yangtze River throughout history is notorious for its flooding and in 1931 it killed 30,000 people and a further 40,000,000 were left without homes.[3] It flooded its bank again merely four years later in 1935. While not as severe as the previous flood, it still left many homeless and desolated the landscape leaving farmers and agricultural workers without the means to support their families. It was to those that suffered from the effects of the floods that my Great Grandpa provided support as a Methodist minister in the Hupeh (now Hubei) province. Having read his letters, the horrifying extent and severity of the flooding is apparent. In one letter he comments that few of the villagers they ministered to in Chiuhuo did not spend three days and nights on their roofs without food because of the flooding. Severe floods followed in 1949, 1954, 1991, and 1998.

Wuhan Flood Memorial, 1969. [4]

It is the damage of these floods that the Three Gorges Dam, first envisioned by Sun Yat-sen and endorsed by Mao Zedong, seeks to prevent. Not only does the dam offer controlled release of flood waters, but as the world's largest hydroelectric dam it provides 22,500 Mega Watts of power and in 2014 generated 98.8 TWh, a world record. The dam helps ships navigate the Yangtze River after making the Xiling Gorge - the most dangerous of the three - by raising the river level. The dam provides a two-way five stage ship lock and a ship lift.

'The Largest Dam' Documentary [5]

In August I had the opportunity to visit the Three Gorges Dam and experience the lock,* but it left me wondering whether the dam was really as wonderful as we were told it was. The controversy of the project since it was confirmed in 1992 that the Three Gorge Dam Project would go ahead has often overshadowed the aims of the project in the media and in academia. Indeed, Richard Louis Edmonds examination of the proposed dam in his 1992 essay 'The Sanxia (Three Gorges) Project: the environmental argument surrounding China's super dam' concludes that the project is the Chinese governments attempt to redeem the flooding situation with a "single grand project"[6] rather than smaller and more environmentally and socially beneficial solutions.

So what are the environmental arguments for and against the dam?

Pros		Cons
Flood Control	Around every ten years, the Yangtze River floods its banks and causes monumental damage to the surrounding landscape and those that inhabit it. Not only have many lives been lost from flooding itself, but from the effects. For example, the 1991 flood caused disease to rise and many had to be rehoused. Overall, 230 million people were affected in the 1991 floods.[7] The Three Gorges Dam is reported to give the surrounding areas a hundred years of flood protection.	Soil Nutrient Deficiency	Flooding causes nutrients gained from fish, shells, plants, soil, rocks to be passed into the soil, making it rich for agricultural purposes. The dam causes these nutrients to settle in the silt if flooding does not occur, leaving soil lacking and causing agricultural crops to fail. The Three Gorges Dam does have sluice gates to help with the flow of nutrients, but it will still effect the nutrient levels of the soil.
Renewable Energy Source	Having 32 generators, the Three Gorges Dam hydropower station provides up to 22,500 Mega Watts. One of the rotary machines can equal the amount of electricity produced by a small nuclear power plant. As a renewable energy source, hydropower amounted to 18% of China’s total electricity in 2014.[8]	Landslides	Landslides occur when the rising and lowering of water in the reservoir and dam dislodges soil and rock at the bottom of surrounding land and causes it to destabilise.  When the reservoir level has been raised, it has triggered numerous landslides. Lowering the water level again causes cracks in the land.
Prevents Rubbish from Flowing out to Sea	A reported ten million tons of rubbish has been caught by the dam, preventing it from flowing downstream and out to sea, thus stopping further pollution to build up in the sea.[9]	Biodiversity Decline	The changing land and waterscapes caused by the dam will further impact many species of plant, fish, and animal that have already suffered from human activity such as fishing. The Baiji Dolphin, now functionally extinct because of human activity such as fishing and habitat destruction, was found only in the Yangtze River and is an example of the damage human activity can cause to species in the Yangtze.
		Earthquakes	Reservoir-induced seismicity is caused when the constant change of water levels and the increased weight of the water along fault lines causes intensified pressure. The Three Gorges Dam sits upon two faults, the Zigui–Badong and the Jiuwanxi, which has caused hundreds of tremors in the region.
		Water Pollution	The landslides and erosion caused by the dam causes rock and sediment to build up in the river.

While there are major environmental drawbacks, the question is whether the success of the hydropower station and flood control outweighs those drawbacks. The flood basin of the Yangtze contains up to 12% of the world's population[10] and so the Chinese government has to balance out the potential environmental damage of the dam with the lives that could be lost or severely affected in flooding. At the very least, the Three Gorges Dam is a sign that the Chinese government wants to move forward in its search for renewable energy. Indeed, it could be argued that China is pioneering the way with the hydropower station being the world's largest. 

*On my trip to the Three Gorges Dam I travelled with the Victoria Cruises from Chongqing to Yichang on Yangtze River. Our River Guide was Bobo Wu, who taught us about the river, the gorges, and the dam.

[1] Jonathan Spense, 'The Scroll and the Story of the Three Gorges', Art Journal 69 (2010), 80-87, p.80. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25800349.pdf> [accessed 2 January 2017].

[2] Craig Clunas, Art in China. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p.82.

[3] Encyclopaedia Britannica Yangtze River Floods (2011). <https://www.britannica.com/science/Yangtze-River-floods> [accessed 2 January 2017].

[4] Wikipedia Commons, Wuhan Flood Memorial (2016) <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Wuhan-Flood-Memorial-0226.jpg> [accessed 3 January 2017].

[5] Largest Dams, The Largest Dam in the World, online video, Youtube, 31 May 2013. <https://youtu.be/b8cCsUBYSkw> [accessed 21 December 2016].

[6] Richard Louis Edmonds, 'The Sanxia (Three Gorges) Project: The Environmental Argument Surrounding China's Super Dam', Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters, 2 (1992), 105-125, p.123. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2997637.pdf> [accessed 2 January 2017].

[7] Ibid, p.114.

[8] World Resources Institute, China FAQs The Network for Climate and Energy Information, p.1. <http://www.chinafaqs.org/files/chinainfo/ChinaFAQs_Renewable_Energy_Overview_0.pdf> [accessed 3 January 2017].

[9] Brian Handwerk, 'China's Three Gorges Dam, by Numbers', National Geographic News (2006) <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060609-gorges-dam_2.html> [accessed 21 December 2016].

[10] Adrian Evans 'River Yangtze: The Great River', Rivers of the World: a Thames Festival Project (2007). <http://totallythames.org/images/uploads/documents/River%20of%20the%20World%20Info%20Packs/River_Yangtze_China.pdf> [accessed 3 January 2017].

Bibliography

Clunas, Craig, Art in China. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Edmonds, Richard Louis, 'The Sanxia (Three Gorges) Project: The Environmental Argument Surrounding China's Super Dam', Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters, 2 (1992), 105-125. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2997637.pdf> [accessed 2 January 2017].

Encyclopaedia Britannica Yangtze River Floods (2011). <https://www.britannica.com/science/Yangtze-River-floods> [accessed 2 January 2017].

—— Three Gorges Dam (2010). <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Three-Gorges-Dam> [accessed 2 January 2017].  

Evans, Adrian, 'River Yangtze: The Great River', Rivers of the World: a Thames Festival Project (2007). <http://totallythames.org/images/uploads/documents/River%20of%20the%20World%20Info%20Packs/River_Yangtze_China.pdf> [accessed 3 January 2017].

Handwerk, Brian, 'China's Three Gorges Dam, by Numbers', National Geographic News (2006) <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060609-gorges-dam_2.html> [accessed 21 December 2016].

Hilton, Isabel 'China's Greener Shoots Need Nurturing', Royal Institute of International Affairs, 68 (2012), 18-20. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/41962774> [accessed 2 January 2017]. 

Hvistendhal, Mara, 'China's Three Gorges Dam: An Encironmental Catastrophe?', Scientific American, March 25 2008. <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-three-gorges-dam-disaster/#> [accessed 30 December 2016].

Largest Dams, The Largest Dam in the World, online video, Youtube, 31 May 2013. <https://youtu.be/b8cCsUBYSkw> [accessed 21 December 2016].

Power-Technology.Com, Three Gorges Dam Hydroelectric Power Plant, China  (2017). <http://www.power-technology.com/projects/gorges/> [accessed 3 January 2017].

Qiang, Li 'Tectonic environment and cause of earthquakes in the Three Gorges reservoir area' Geodysy and Geodynamics, 2 (2011), 13-20. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674984715301002> [accessed 3 January 2017]. 

Seismology Research Centre, Dams and Earthquakes (Unknown). <http://www.src.com.au/earthquakes/seismology-101/dams-earthquakes/> [accessed 3 January 2017].

Spense, Jonathan, 'The Scroll and the Story of the Three Gorges', Art Journal 69 (2010), 80-87, p.80. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25800349.pdf> [accessed 2 January 2017].

Travel China Guide, Yu the Great (2017) <https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/prehistoric/great_yu.htm> [accessed 2 January 2017].

U.S. Energy Information Institution, International Energy Outlook 2016 (2016). <https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/electricity.cfm> [accessed 3 January 2017].

Whale and Dolphin Centre, Baiji Dolphins (Unknown). <http://uk.whales.org/species-guide/baiji> [accessed 3 January 2017].

Wikipedia Commons, Wuhan Flood Memorial (2016) <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Wuhan-Flood-Memorial-0226.jpg> [accessed 3 January 2017].

World Resources Institute, China FAQs The Network for Climate and Energy Information, p.1. <http://www.chinafaqs.org/files/chinainfo/ChinaFAQs_Renewable_Energy_Overview_0.pdf> [accessed 3 January 2017].

The first, fourth, and fifth photos taken by Daniel Palmer 2016, previously unpublished.

Ecological Thinking and Jean Sprackland 'Strands'

Timothy Morton suggests in his introduction to The Ecological Thought that ecological thinking is seeing "that everything is interconnected."[1] This interconnectedness is what he terms the mesh. But what does this mean? Essentially it is about coexisting and how our encounters with the world around us and other beings hold significance. Morton goes on to say that this form of thinking is a "practise and a process of becoming fully aware of how human beings are connected with other beings - animal, vegetable, or mineral."[2]

This is a process Jean Sprackland demonstrates in Strands, a year's worth of reflections on the discoveries she makes when walking along the Ainsdale Sands. These beaches are familiar to Sprackland; she has walked them numerous times. Yet in Strands she seeks to see them anew, as she states in her preface: 

I'm setting out, armed with curiosity rather than expertise, to pay a different kind of attention to what I see. I hope to cut through the blur of familiarity, and explore this place as if for the first time. Some of my finds may be real surprises, and others more predictable; but I shall pick them up and hold them to the light, regardless.[3]

Through this "different kind of attention" Sprackland highlights the interconnection between humans, beaches, and the creatures that inhabit them. In the chapter 'Prozac' Sprackland discusses the implications on the environment of taking Prozac: with thirty-million prescriptions of Prozac issued a year, it eventually ends up as fluoxetine in our drinking water, rivers, and the sea by passing through our systems. Shrimp, as explained in Strands, have been affected by this and, as a result, their populations are declining. This impacts on the lives of fisherman: "It would take more than a few doses of Prozac to cheer up the people who once made a good honest living from these waters."[4] Here, Sprackland exhibits the interconnection of our relationship with the world and its cyclical nature by suggesting that humans taking Prozac has caused the shrimp to decline, and thus causing instability in humans' livelihoods, which could induce them to take Prozac.

Strands does not just look at interconnection negatively, but hints at how we might learn from nature and the world around us. Or rather, how nature can often do things better than we can. When discussing her discovery of a sea mouse, Sprackland comments: 

It is sobering to realise that one of our most complex and impressive human achievements - the developments of high-tech communications technology - is outdone by an obscure mud-dwelling worm, a creature which shares the ocean floor with the fibre optic cables we've laid there. [5]

Nature often offers greater solutions than we have, and often displays the interconnection and co-existence of our world that Morton describes as the mesh. Trees, as Suzanne Simard has discovered, communicate and help each other to co-exist by sending nutrients that the other tree needs via their roots and mycorrhiza.[6] Such processes are not apparent in the world we see and were only discovered after numerous studies. Simard's thinking, a curiosity into the interconnection of trees, displays Morton's theory that such ecological thinking is a practise. 

An extension of this form of ecological thinking is learning from nature; biomimicry presents a way we can learn from, as biomimicry expert Maria O’Farrell suggests, the "genius" that "surround[s]" us.[7] Such thinking, from both Simard and O'Farrell embodies what Morton suggests about the mesh and strange strangers: "The more we know about life forms, the more we recognise our connection with them and the stranger they become."[8]

However, as Morton suggests ecological thinking is not just for scientists, but for the humanities and the arts as well. Indeed, it is their "responsibility to examine, participate in, support, and criticise scientific experiments."[9] This is what Strands does: it links together real experiences of the beach; science and discovery; and the humanities and arts. It presents a thought-process, or even a thought-experiment, that tracks the 'strands' of thoughts and ideas that arise from simple walks on the beach. This shows how interconnected the world is not just in the thinking process, but also through the physical.

Strands asks us to think ecologically about the physical mesh of our world and, for me, this makes Sprackland's book successful and effective in changing the way we approach not just beaches, but nature; it also alters our behaviour that ultimately affects these environments.

[1] Timothy Morton, Ecological Thinking (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010), p.1.

[2] Ibid, p.7.

[3] Jean Sprackland, Strands (London: Jonathan Cape, 2012), p.xiii.

[4] Ibid, p.32.

[5] Ibid, p.97.

[6]  TED Talks, How trees talk to each other | Suzanne Simard, online video, Youtube, 30th August 2016, <https://youtu.be/Un2yBgIAxYs> [accessed 3rd December 2016].

[7] Great Big Story, Surrounded by Genius: Nature's Take on Engineering, online video, Youtube, 21st November 2016, <https://youtu.be/TU9qh8vPryU> [accessed 5th December 2016].

[8] Morton, Ecological Thinking, p.17.

[9] Ibid, p.13.

Bibliography

Great Big Story, Surrounded by Genius: Nature's Take on Engineering, online video, Youtube, 21st November 2016, <https://youtu.be/TU9qh8vPryU> [accessed 5th December 2016].

Morton, Timothy, Ecological Thinking (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010).

Sprackland, Jean Strands (London: Jonathan Cape, 2012).

TED Talks, How trees talk to each other | Suzanne Simard, online video, Youtube, 30th August 2016, <https://youtu.be/Un2yBgIAxYs> [accessed 3rd December 2016].

Photo by Daniel Palmer, previously unpublished.

The Beach and the Pastoral Tradition

I grew up by the coast. That probably prompts visions of soft sand, smooth pebbles and blue sea. There was none of that. Instead I grew up in a busy town with docks where the sound of ship's horns were heard more than the sound of the waves. The beaches nearby were all stones or marshes. Definitely not idyllic, especially when plastic bottles and carrier bags were strewn across it. But it still had that slight salty tang to the air and the water was still bitter cold, as it is on any British beach. On a fine day the sea is bright blue, but most of the time it is a murky grey. When I look at this beach I see how humans have interacted with it.

But why don't I think this when I see golden sand, sharp cliffs, and clear blue sea? Lyme Regis, where the photo above was taken, had French sand, Norwegian rocks, and shingle from the Isle of Wight brought in as part of their coastal protection project. This project seeks to actively reduce the damage caused by coastal erosion and land slipping and prevent it in the future. The coastal erosion is natural, but has been especially damaging in the last 100 years as the construction of certain buildings has heightened the damaging effect of the erosion. My question is: what is it that make me see Lyme Regis as more 'natural' and idyllic than the coastlines I grew up with? 

There is little aesthetic evidence of human interaction with the Lyme Regis coastal landscape other than the obvious houses, paths, and boats. Furthermore, Lyme Regis captures the notion of the pastoral, a mode of writing that celebrates nature as Eden-esque. As a holiday destination to retreat to, particularly in the summer months, it encompasses the key features of retreat and return, and idealisation common to the pastoral tradition. The quaint and colourful buildings tell of times gone by, giving Lyme Regis a sense of nostalgia, another trope of the pastoral. 

The beaches I frequented when growing up, however, were bleak landscapes evoking the anti-pastoral tradition in literature. Emphasising reality; showing the problems nature presents; and demythologising the literary (and in this case, cultural) idea of the paradise, the anti-pastoral is the antithesis of the pastoral tradition. Scattered with bottles and plastic bags the beaches, with the Fawley oil refinery rising in the background, display the reality of human interaction with nature: taking without concern and only giving back pollution and litter. Just as the landscape itself is bleak, the view of our interaction with nature is equally bleak. 

How can we reconcile these two views? 

While our cultural view of Lyme Regis does not match the reality of the landscape and our interaction with it, the coastal protection project could be seen as including aspects of what Terry Gifford terms the post-pastoral. This seeks to create a balance between the pastoral and anti-pastoral tradition, allowing us to connect emotionally with nature while recognising the flaws we have created within it. The appreciation of the beauty that the Dorset coast has to offer has inspired its protection and preservation. Although this does not necessarily suggest a movement from awe to humility that reduces our hubris, it does recognise the fact that humans are a part of nature's creative-destructive processes. Furthermore, it offers an answer to Gifford's question 'if nature is culture, is culture nature?' The answer being that the beach, or the summer retreat of the beach (embodied by Lyme Regis), has become embedded in the English tradition. Needless to say, the coastal protection project does not fully answer all the questions Gifford suggests that the post-pastoral should raise, but it does begin to offer answers to some.

Will our cultural opinion of Lyme Regis, traditionally pastoral, inch into the post-pastoral? Only time will tell. 

Bibliograpy

Dorestforyou.com Lyme Regis Coast protection Works, 2016. [Online] Available from: https://www.dorsetforyou.gov.uk/lyme [Accessed: 10/10/2016].

Gifford, Terry 'Pastoral, Anti-Pastoral and Post-Pastoral as Reading Strategies', 2012. [Online] Available from: http://www.terrygifford.co.uk/Pastoral%20reading.pdf [Accessed: 17/10/2016]. 

Photo by Daniel Palmer, previously unpublished.