Re-Evaluating Human-Nature Relationship: Transcorporeality and the Agency of Nature in Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain

Abstract: The binary opposition between the human and the natural world is the consequence of an anthropocentric epistemic system. Such idea positions nature as a mechanical system available for exploitation. However, there is a need to understand how the environment structures human consciousness. This paper explores the interface between human psychology and ecological reality in Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain. Drawing upon Stacy Alaimo’s concept of "trans-corporeality," it argues that human understanding of nature as a pristine entity is a fallacious proposition. Nature as a biotic community has its own agency independent of human interpretation. Its external expansion reshapes the inner self and the psyche; its grotesque makes human realize their limit before the vastness of nature. Thus, nature exists not to be exploited, but to be present as the most complex organic system.