DefinePK

Abstract

The current study is an attempt to unveil Climate Trauma is Nathaniel Rich’s Odd Against Tomorrow. The field of Climate Trauma is a burgeoning field in ecocriticism which has grabbed the attention of the literary imagination, where text like Odd Against Tomorrow deals with it in a nuanced way. The novel deals with Climate Trauma where fictitious characters suffer the symptoms of Climate Trauma i.e. hallucination, flashforward, pre-anxiety and pre-traumatic stress syndrome. The major selected character, Mitchel Zukor, has severe Climate Trauma and he manifests almost all the symptoms of Climate Trauma. The current study is qualitative in nature where relevant text exhibiting Climate Trauma and its symptoms has been explored and data has been gathered through close reading where then an in-depth textual analysis has been carried out. The research paper finds that pre-traumatic stress syndrome is a real mental phenomenon caused by the anxiety about future ecological calamity in the fictious character in the novel. It unveils that Mitchel Zukor carries pre-traumatic stress syndrome which has been caused by his alienation, isolation and detachment from nature. It also unveils that his mechanistic, reductionistic and materialistic approach towards nature has caused his Climate Trauma. The study is important because it deals with a burgeoning field of Climate Trauma and ecocriticism, and it drags the attention of the researchers in literary studies to engage with this field and explore it in novel ways. The study fills in a very important gap by arguing that E Ann Kaplan’s Climate Trauma theory is largely individualistic focusing on spectacular and episodic events while ignoring the slow gradually unfolding and cumulative nature of ecologically induced mental distresses.