Land Ethic and Anthropocentrism in J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World

Abstract

James Graham Ballard was a contemporary British author mostly known for his dystopian works dealing with climatic disasters, uncanny catastrophes and the negative effects of technological modernity. Ballard’s fourth novel, The Crystal World (1966) tells the unusual story of Edward Sanders, a medical doctor treating leprosy patients in Cameroon. Together with his friends, Sanders encounters a strange phenomenon in the African jungle that slowly turns everything into crystal. This study aims to interpret Ballard’s The Crystal World from the window of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and the notion of anthropocentrism. The theoretical section of the article gives a detailed account of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic referring to various texts and sources. The land ethic proposes a formulation for the preservation of land from the perspective of environmental ethics whereas anthropocentrism strongly insists on the central position of humans in the universe. Specifically, the article argues that through the allegorical narrative, Ballard deconstructs anthropocentric human thought and reveals the immediate necessity for a land ethic by revealing the exploitation of land and the exaltation of human speciesism/chauvinism. To this end, the study examines how Ballard deconstructs anthropocentrism in The Crystal World and implies the necessity for a land ethic, combined with an ecological conscience.