Poisoned Grounds: Toxic Discourse in Barbara Kingsolver’s Fiction and Nonfiction

Abstract In his Writing for an Endangered World (2001), Lawrence Buell coins and defines the term “toxic discourse” as “anxiety arising from the perceived threat of environmental hazard due to chemical modification by the human agency” (31). Buell’s concept of toxic discourse offers a framework and four topoi: “the shock of awakened perception,” “a world without refuge from toxic penetration,” “the threat of hegemonic oppression,” and “gothicization” (35–42). Following this line of thought, the present paper addresses the intersection between ecocriticism and toxic discourse. Then it proceeds to explore how Buell’s four topoi are presented in the works of American essay writer, scientist, and novelist Barbara Kingsolver, in Animal Dreams (1990), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 (1989), Prodigal Summer (2000), the essay “In the Belly of the Beast” from the collection High Tide in Tucson (1995), and three essays, “A Fist in the Eye of God,” “A Forest’s Last Stand,” and “The Patience of a Saint” from the collection Small Wonder (2003). Kingsolver’s fiction and nonfiction present how human-induced chemical toxicity destroys the planetary ecosystem. This study examines how Buell’s concept of “contaminated communities” is reinforced through Kingsolver’s depiction of the copper mining community in Arizona or the small farms exposed to chemical hazards from using pesticides. Buell’s tendency to “gothicize” toxicity resonates with Kingsolver’s works presenting grotesque images of nuclear waste dump/fallout and industrial pollution, and present the “hegemonic oppression” of the mining corporation (Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation in the USA) or the government policies using nuclear warheads and agricultural chemicals. (AP and VS)