15, April 2026

Climate, Catastrophe, and Narrative Blindness: Revisiting Realism in The Great Derangement

VOLUME-10; ISSUE-4; APR-2026

Author(s): Shailja Nimavat

Authors Affiliations:

Ph.D. Scholar, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, India

DOIs:10.2017/IJRCS/202604004     |     Paper ID: IJRCS202604004


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Abstract:    This paper examines the intersections of environmental ethics, sustainability theory, and ecocriticism through a critical reading of The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh. It argues that climate change represents not only an ecological emergency but also an epistemological crisis embedded in the narrative structures of modernity. Ghosh contends that the conventions of literary realism—particularly its privileging of probabilistic continuity and bourgeois interiority—have rendered large-scale climatic events narratively marginal and culturally implausible. This paper extends that claim by demonstrating how narrative form shapes environmental ethics and, consequently, sustainability governance. Drawing on material ecocriticism, posthuman environmental ethics, and strong sustainability theory, the study analyzes how anthropocentric literary conventions reinforce political frameworks that treat ecological disruption as exceptional rather than systemic. Through close engagement with Ghosh’s critique of fossil capitalism, colonial modernity, and Global South vulnerability, the paper situates the climate crisis within histories of uneven development and environmental injustice. It further contends that sustainability cannot be reduced to technocratic adaptation; rather, it requires a relational ethical framework that recognizes nonhuman agency and planetary interdependence. By linking literary form to governance inertia, this paper proposes that cultural imagination is a precondition for structural transformation. Reframing human–nature relations through ecocritical analysis enables a more just and ecologically grounded sustainability paradigm suited to the ethical demands of the Anthropocene.  
Key Words:  Ecocriticism, Environmental Ethics, Anthropocene, Sustainability Governance, Climate Justice.

Shailja Nimavat (2026); Climate, Catastrophe, and Narrative Blindness: Revisiting Realism in The Great Derangement, International Journal of Research Culture Society,    ISSN(O): 2456-6683,  Volume – 10,   Issue –  4,  Available on – https://ijrcs.org/

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