Ecocriticism And The Changing Human–Nature Relationship In Contemporary Canadian Literature

Authors: Dr. J. Felcia Pushpalatha

Abstract: Contemporary Canadian literature increasingly represents the relationship between human beings and the natural world as complex, interdependent, and historically shaped by colonialism, industrialization, technology, and environmental change. Ecocriticism provides an important framework for examining these changing relationships because it shifts literary analysis from an exclusively human-centred perspective towards an understanding of the interconnectedness of human, non-human, and material worlds. This paper examines the changing human–nature relationship in contemporary Canadian literature through an ecocritical reading of selected works, with particular attention to Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017), Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018), and Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song (2014). These texts represent different literary responses to ecological crisis, including climate change, technological domination, resource extraction, colonial displacement, loss of biodiversity, and Indigenous relationships with land. The study argues that contemporary Canadian literature has moved beyond the conventional representation of nature as wilderness or passive background. Instead, nature is increasingly presented as an active presence within human history, culture, memory, survival, and identity. The selected Indigenous texts further complicate conventional Anthropocene narratives by connecting environmental destruction with colonial histories and emphasizing relationality, community, traditional knowledge, and land-based responsibility. The paper concludes that contemporary Canadian literature contributes significantly to ecological thought by challenging anthropocentrism and encouraging a more reciprocal understanding of human–nature relationships.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23096860