A Study of Environmental Degradation in Tahmima Anam’s The Bones of Grace

Abstract

Tahmima Anam’s The Bones of Grace is one of the novels from her Bengali tri-series, including A Golden Age and The Good Muslim. The story gives us a strong image of the developing countries crisis of developing countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. The protagonist Zubeda is a paleontologist who travels to different countries; not only Zubeda but also most of the characters in this novel keeps traveling, some are searching for work, and others are searching for love. The village that is the birthplace of Zubaida and Anwar is a perfect example of those places that were destroyed during the ecological crisis of environmental degradation. The writer shows how Lobonchora village ecology was damaged, people cannot cultivate the lands, and no crops were growing due to drought. On the other hand, during monsoon, the village area gets flooded. And the same picture we can see in the novel of Chittagong city in Bangladesh. As a result of industrialization, the city area is being polluted, seawater and animals are in danger “a place where people tore ships apart and whales died in swimming pools and tides threw up the trash of the entire world” (Anam 273). Because of flood and drought, Anwar, Ali, and Mohammad, migrate from the village to Chittagong in search of work. Before going to Chittagong, Anwar also tries his luck in Dubai because harvesting is difficult in the village for the lack of water. Therefore, this study also attempts to discover how the ecological crisis is becoming a cause of migration and environmental destruction. Through the lens of ecocriticism, this paper is trying to show how the characters are forced to leave their homeland due to environmental crises and unplanned industrialization and the impact of these on the life of the characters. Keywords: The Bones of Grace, Migration, Industrialization, Ecological Crisis, Environmental Degradation, Anthropocene, Climate Change.