Empathy for the Earth: Ecological Empathy and Nonhuman Agency in N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy

Abstract

This study examines N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, which includes The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016), and The Stone Sky (2017), with the aim of understanding the role of speculative fiction in promoting environmental empathy and encouraging ethical thinking on environmental issues. The specific objectives of this study are to examine the representation of climate change and environmental degradation in Jemisin’s work, to examine the human-nature relationship and environmental empathy, and to examine Jemisin’s contribution to climate fiction and environmental literary works. The main sources of data were obtained through a critical analysis of the texts in The Broken Earth Trilogy, which includes all three novels. In general, the analysis is based on the overall narrative content of the trilogy. In addition, the analysis is based on secondary sources in the field of ecocriticism, climate fiction, and environmental humanities. The analysis is based on an ecocritical and eco-feminist theory that emphasizes non-human agency, environmental justice, and anthropocentric thinking. The results show that the trilogy depicts the Earth as an agentic and morally relevant being, frames environmental degradation as part of a broader system of social oppression and emphasizes empathy as a key ethical concept for sustainable living. This research contributes to the field of climate fiction studies by revealing the potential of literature in promoting ecologies of awareness, engagement, and ethics, and shedding light on the role of narrative in the development of human understanding of social and environmental entanglements.

Keywords: Climate Fiction, Ecocriticism, Environmental Justice, Empathy, Human–Nature Interconnectedness, N. K. Jemisin

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20678733