Western Impunity and African Complicity in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy

Abstract

Exploitation of Africa’s rainforest resources, as depicted in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy, is quite unnerving. But this eco-ethical issue, deeply etched within the novel’s fabrics, is often obscured by the equally despicable human debacle of female genital mutilation; thereby diverting the attention of readers/critics from the moral implications of the ecologic injustices in the novel. Thus, from a bio-centred perspective, this paper, an ecocritical analysis of the Western culture of impunity, apropos their treatment of the African ecosystem, examines the factors that engender connivance by Africans, and the retributive consequences of the objectionable exploitation of that African commune. It concludes that Humanity’s anthropocentric zeal for discovery and advancement in medicine and other sciences need not result in the obnoxious destruction of other species in an ecosystem, as this only incurs upon humanity retributive consequences, such as the HIV and AIDS pandemic, vividly depicted in the novel, though as an entirely African tribulation.

Keywords: Ecological degradation, African Complicity, Alice Walker