An Ecocritical Study of Paul Zindel's Let Me Hear You Whisper

Abstract

This paper aims at an ecocritical study of Paul Zindel's play, ‘Let Me Hear You Whisper'. Though published in 1974 before ecocriticism was founded as a discipline, it unfolds the issue of animal abuse in laboratory testing that causes disruption in the relation of the human/non-human ecosystem. Animal studies have thus emerged with the concern for the environment, rejecting the anthropocentrism that has been reflected in how humans deal with animal testing in laboratories using technology and damaging the natural environment. The cruel handling of experimentation on the non-human world is an abuse of nature and here comes the goal of ecocriticism which attempts to expound how humans are disrupting, not only the natural cosmos, but the whole ecosystem. The analysis will present an introduction to ecocriticism and reveal how this is the main purpose of the play in rejecting animal testing, heading towards raising awareness for environmental ethics.