Ecofeminism and Environmental Ethics in Anuradha Roy’s The Folded Earth among College Students in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

This research work investigates environmental ethics and ecofeminism consciousness via an interdisciplinary approach that involves both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in order to analyze an environmental novel named The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy and to assess the student consciousness about the same in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The relationship between ecological ethics, gender equality, sustainability, and depiction of nature is investigated through the novel and the way in which it finds resonance in the student consciousness is explored. The qualitative component of the research is based on the ecofeminist reading of the novel based on women-nature relationship, ecological symbolism, environmental ethics, and environmental degradation. On the other hand, the quantitative component is based on the primary data collected from 300 college students through a questionnaire using convenience sampling technique. The results show that 42% of participants exhibited high levels of environmental ethics, 37% had moderate levels, while 21% had low levels; 42% had moderate levels of awareness of ecofeminism, 40% had high levels, and 18% had low levels. There were three factors in the PCA accounting for 65.29% of variance; these were Environmental Responsibility (35.12%), Ecofeminist Equality (17.80%), and Sustainable Lifestyle (12.37%). These were revealed by KMO value of 0.861 and significant Bartlett's test (χ² = 1685.214, df = 66, p < 0.001). The results suggest a similarity between Roy's ecological approach and environmental awareness of students, highlighting the importance of literature as an additional tool to social empirical research in promoting environmental responsibility, gender-sensitive participation, and sustainability.