Representation Of Ecological Consciousness In Henry Ole Kulet’s Vanishing Herds And The Hunter

ABSTRACT

This study endeavours to bring a fresh insight into the role of literature in the global campaign against environmental degradation. It examines how human culture impacts the natural environment in Henry Ole Kulet’s novels: Vanishing Herds and The Hunter. The study engaged the critical tools of postcolonial ecocriticism in the analysis of the author’s conceptualization of nature, the relationship between colonialism and ecology, and the impact of culture on how characters’ experience, perceive, and relate to nature. The study employs a qualitative research methodology based on close textual reading of the selected primary texts as the principal means of data collection and analysis. The collection of secondary data for the study involves a meticulous library research for relevant books, scholarly journals, dissertations, essays, and newspaper articles from both print and the internet. This study contains five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction that offers the study’s conceptual background. Chapter two is a critical analysis of the author’s representation of the natural world in Vanishing Herds. Chapter three attempts to investigate the ecological ramifications of modernity and British colonialism and relate it to the environmental challenges depicted in Vanishing Herds and The Hunter. In Chapter four, the study examines the representation of characters’ ecological consciousness in Vanishing Herds and The Hunter. The final chapter offers a summary of the study’s key findings, conclusions and recommendations. Findings from the study revealed a significant correlation between culture and the way people perceive and relate to the natural environment. The study also revealed a link between British colonialism and some of the environmental challenges experienced in the post-colonial Kenyan state. The study recommends the recovery and restoration of indigenous ecological ethics embedded in local cultural practices and beliefs that were debased and discouraged under colonialism.