Literature and the Environment: Environmental Issues in Ifeoma Okoye’s The Fourth World

The discovery of oil in Nigeria has paradoxically brought fortune and destruction to its people. Communities in the Niger-Delta region of the country have been suffering the negative impacts of oil exploration and exploitation in their areas. This study examines the relationship between literature and the environment with the purpose of exposing the negative impacts of man’s activities on his environment. This study looks at environmental degradation by investigating how the activities of man invariably affect nature in the most negative way. The data for this work was collected from primary and secondary sources. The theoretical framework adopted for this study is Ecocriticism, which is the study of representation of nature in literary works and of the relationship between literature and the environment. The findings show that these authors exposed environmental degradation, oil spillage, poor waste management, deforestation, pollution, exploitation, unemployment, as some of the direct consequences of oil exploration in the Niger Delta region of the country. The study shows clearly that the Niger Delta is steadily and painfully devalued and devastated by the activities of expatriate oil companies and their Nigerian collaborators.