فائزه مهاجری

The thematic genre of climate fiction invites the readers to observe and experience climate change from different perspectives. In other words, it allows them to reconsider the status quo, reverberate their worries, and forecast future disasters. Climate fiction (cli-fi from now on) not only reflects our serious concerns about the earth and future but also promotes the feelings and impressions of the characters of a novel to raise the cognizance of the readers throughout the whole world. That is, it raises our motivations to be the louder voice in the international controversy over carbon emissions. More importantly, since the Earth incessantly is encountering fatal strikes from climate change, these kinds of narratives become a part of universal storytelling culture, exposing fresh ideologies about the future that humanity might face. Thus, the more we accept the science and logic behind climate change at the cultural level, the more effectively we enjoin together to prevent future events. Reading and analyzing cli-fi is of significance because it furnishes possible solutions and gives a clear idea to experience and visualize the complexity of the notion of climate change, which means entering the realm of social commitment.

   By employing the multidisciplinary approach of Anthropocene that draws upon sources of environmentalist criticism and its primary elements— setting, psychological and social issues, Anthropogenic factors, and fictional themes— this thesis centers on the literary portrayal of the symbiosis connection of nature and humans i   Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior and J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World, on the one hand, and the selected Modern Persian eco-poetries from different Iranian poets, on the other. In so doing, the study finds that even though there is no genre of cli-fi in Persian Literature, the initial footsteps of this outlook can be seen in Persian poetry. This study is a critical analysis of the current relationship between nature and human beings that influences readers’ attitudes toward the anxieties of nature destruction that lead to human annihilation. Finally, it finds that humans and nature should sign a new contract known as a symbiosis with a strong coexistence and interrelatedness between the representations of the human and non-human world, which English cli-fi and Persian eco-poetry unanimously focus on reshuffling this relationship.