The Earth’s Avenger in Victorian Climate Fiction

Abstract

Literary criticism is asked to participate in heated discussions concerning global warming and ecological instability leading to climate disasters. Also, it accepts the invitation and tries to devise effective ways of dealing with the climate change crisis. Many critics propose that literature in the realm of imagination plays a role in effectively persuading the general public about the reality we are facing on the planet earth. Retrieving the dismissed literary works or reassessing the canon would be part of the role. This article aims to reassess one of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s popular novels in order to explore how Braddon, a Victorian novelist, observes and reflects the matters related to the ecological environment in her time. The Trail of the Serpent centers on a crime narrative in which Jabez North builds his criminal career, achieves his life objective in luxury, and is eventually captured and charged with various crimes. As I argue, Braddon makes the reader imagine a correlation between his criminal acts and atmospheric events such as extreme rainfall, fierce wind, and foul fog. Setting odd weather events as the expression of the angry earth, Braddon constructs her criminal protagonist as a messenger, warning against human ignorance about a reciprocal relationship between humans and the planet earth’s ecosystems.