Solastlgia and Ecological Grief in Emmi Itäranta's The Memory of Water: An Ecostylistic Analysis

Abstract

Climate change and environmental degradation have come to be more and more a theme in modern literature, especially what has come to be known as “climate fiction”, which depicts the emotional and psychological effects of environmental catastrophe. The study will focus on aspects of language and style in the novel as they show emotional reactions to environmental destruction and to trauma caused by climate change. This study uses the qualitative research method and a text analysis approach as the main tool for the study. Using the theoretical framework of ecostylistics, imagery, symbolism, diction and tone are analyzed in the novel. The emotions of the characters, their displacement and ecological anxiety in the context of the water scarcity and environmental instability are discussed in the context of the concepts of solastalgia and ecological grief. The results show that in the novel, dystopian features and ecostyle serve to effectively depict the ecological grief and solastalgia. Images of water symbolize memory, survival and ecological interconnectedness, and depictions of landscape and water scarcity are associated with environmental degradation. Moreover, the melancholic language and tone help convey the emotional stress and psychological anguish resulting from climate change. The overall conclusion of the study is that The Memory of Water is an effective fusion of ecology, style and emotion and a meaningful piece of climate fiction. The research also shows that ecostylistics is a good approach to analyzing the emotion of the environment and environmental representation in literary works.