Anxiety, Alienation, and the Collapse of Anthropocentric Consciousness: Nature’s Epiphanic Resistance and the Reconfiguration of Self in Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s Aranyak

Abstract

The concept of impenetrability in high ecological spaces, particularly dense forest regions, presents a profound challenge to the human being steeped in an anthropocentric worldview, especially those who inhabit urban environments. Forests, with their dense vegetation, labyrinthine ecosystems, and unpredictable rhythms, resist the mechanistic logic of urban existence, which thrives on control, order, and predictability. Philosopher Timothy Morton’s concept of “dark ecology” suggests that the complexity and vastness of such ecological spaces confront the human with an “uncanny” sense of their own smallness and vulnerability (Morton 55). Unlike the regulated, sanitized urban environments where human dominance is assumed, the forest represents an autonomous entity that neither needs nor accommodates human presence. The anthropocentric mindset, particularly when shaped by urban life, often struggles to adapt to such spaces, not merely due to physical discomfort but because these environments defy the binary distinction between human and non-human. Forests, in their wildness, challenge the very notion that humans are the central agents of the world.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199392090.2025.57-63.