Ecological Trauma: A Close Reading and Eco-Critical Analysis of Ripples of Our Deeds by Sunday Afolayan

Abstract

The recent industrialized and technologized progress is eroding the environmental integrity. Humans, animals, birds, and other forms of life along with natural phenomena share almost the same ecological trauma. Rather than inhaling oxygen, humans breathe in smog and smoke. Turtles swallow plastic bags taking the latter as jellyfish. Having been deprived of their natural habits, birds and animals live in the middle of nowhere. Not only are the humans distressed but the other living and nonliving objects of nature are being shaken. Sunday Afolayan raises his voice for all. His poem Ripples of Our Deeds tells the story of Ecological Trauma. The ripple effect of modern man’s cruel acts against environment structures the motif of the poem.  A close reading of this poem explores that the form, symbols, metaphors, images etc. and the sound patterns exhibit the poem’s main concerns about environmental degradation and ecological trauma. The close reading of the poem also reveals that the Ripples of our deeds incorporates narrative, descriptive and dramatic elements whose interaction forecasts the traumatic consequences of environmental plight. This paper also explores the eco-critical elements in some poems written in the past to juxtapose them with the poem primarily under analysis to discover the successional concerns of the poets regarding environmental degradation and its effects.  Furthermore, this research paper also employs eco-criticism to explore the themes of Anthropocene and Ecopoetics in almost all sections of the piece. By doing so, this paper aims to uncover the motif of ecological trauma accentuated in this poem which echoes the relational triangle between nature, human and literature.