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Marxism
Marxism refers to the social, political and economic principles laid down by Karl Marx. The
philosophy is named after the economist and philosopher Karl Marx. The philosopher was
famous for his theories on capitalism and communism.
Marxism itself can be considered to be both a political philosophy and a sociological method.
Marxism suggests that class conflicts, especially between the proletariat (workers) and
bourgeoisies (business owners), are unequal opposites in the capitalistic economy that will
inevitably culminate in a revolution because of material exploitation. According to the concept,
the bourgeoisie will first decrease and lose their political power, while the number of workers
will increase to take over the means of production.
Base and Superstructure
The base and superstructure model is a theoretical framework. Marx describes this as ‘the
economic structure’ determining ‘the material conditions of life’. This will also include social,
political and intellectual consciousness.
Marxism aspires to bring about a classless society which is anchored in the common ownership
of the means of production, distribution and exchange. It also views history as a class struggle
rather than a succession of dynasties or the process of freedom struggle and this history is
‘motored’ by the competition for economic, social and political advantage.
The simplest Marxist model of society sees it as constituted by a base and a superstructure. The
base contains the forces and relations of production, such as employer-employee work
conditions, the technical division of labor and property relations, into which people enter to
produce the necessities and amenities of life. These relations have an effect on the
superstructure of the society, which includes its culture, institutions, political power structures,
rituals, philosophy and morality.
The essential Marxist view is that the elements of superstructure are not ‘innocent’ but
‘determined’ by the nature of the economic base. It is upon the economic ‘base’ that a
superstructure “arises”. This belief about culture, known as economic determinism, is a central
part of traditional Marxist thinking. According to this argument, a feudal economic order will
inevitably produce the particular forms of government, law, art, religion, etc., characteristic of
the middle ages, while a capitalist economic order will produce those of modernity. But this
straightforwardly mechanistic understanding of the relationship between base and
superstructure is seen as too simplistic by most contemporary Marxist critics. They argue that
just as the base influences the superstructure, the superstructure also influences the base.
Raymond Williams, a Welsh critic, tried to topple this simplistic notion of the relationship
between the base and superstructure in his essay “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural
Theory.” He says that the base and the superstructure should not be treated as separate entities
but as interacting ones which mutually influence each other.
French Marxist theoretician, Louis Althusser introduced the notion of an effect which arises
from a variety of causes acting together. This concept undermines the simplistic notions
between the base and superstructure. Also, showed the degree of independence for art from

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economic forces, despite the relationship between culture and economics. This also posits that
a superstructure is not entirely determined by the nature of the economic base.
To conclude, the model of Base and Superstructure has been held as an indispensible tool in
Marxist theory, influencing various fields such as art and literature, but is used with caution in
present times.
Classification/History
For Marx, the analysis of social class, class structures and changes in those structures are key
to understanding capitalism and other social systems or modes of production. As Marx and
Engels comment that: the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
It is important to recognize that Marx viewed the structure of society in relation to its major
classes, and the struggle between. His was no equilibrium or consensus theory. The structure
itself was a derivative of and ingredient in the struggle of classes. His was a conflict view of
modem (nineteenth century) society.
The key to understanding Marx is his class definition. In relation to property there are three
great classes of society:
 the bourgeoisie (who own the means of production such as machinery and factory
buildings, and whose source of income is profit),
 landowners (whose income is rent), and
 the proletariat (who own their labor and sell it for a wage).
Marxists explain the history of societies in terms of a war of classes between those who control
production and those who produce the goods or services in society. In his view of capitalism,
this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and wage-workers (the proletariat). For
Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control over social production control
by over the class which produces goods—in capitalism this is the exploitation of workers by
the bourgeoisie.
As Marx saw the development of class conflict, eventually, given the maturing of capitalism,
the growing disparity between life conditions of bourgeoisie and proletariat, and the increasing
homogenization within each class, individual struggles become generalized to coalitions across
factories. As a result, class consciousness is increased, common interests and policies are
organized, and the use of and struggle for political power occurs. Classes become political
forces.
Finally, the division between classes will widen and the condition of the exploited worker will
deteriorate so badly that social structure collapses: the class struggle is transformed into a
proletarian revolution. The workers' triumph will eliminate the basis of class division in
property through public ownership of the means of production. With the basis of classes thus
wiped away, a classless society will ensue, and since political power to protect the bourgeoisie
against the workers is unnecessary, political authority and the state will wither away.
Overall, there are six elements in Marx's view of class conflict.
 Classes are authority relationships based on property ownership.
 A class defines groupings of individuals with shared life situations, thus interests.
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 Classes are naturally antagonistic by virtue of their interests.

 Imminent within modern society is the growth of two antagonistic classes and their
struggle, which eventually absorbs all social relations.
 Political organization and Power is an instrumentality of class struggle, and reigning
ideas are its reflection.
 Structural change is a consequence of the class struggle.
These historical events and trends notwithstanding, the sociological outlines of Marx's
approach have much value. His emphasis on conflict, on classes, on their relations to the state,
and on social change was a powerful perspective that should not be discarded. The spirit, if not
the substance, of his theory is worth developing.
Features
The following are the basic features of Marxism
Revolution: Marxism is designed to appeal to the downtrodden who feel that capitalism isn’t
benefiting them. It calls for the conflict and revolution as opposed to civility and reform.
Agency: M. assumes that individuals have low agency and are essentially victims of systems.
For example, M. view that all capitalist workers as alienated whether they are not aware of this
alienation or not. Workers who report high work of life satisfaction would be dismissed as
having low self-awareness. This is a primary difference from capitalism that embraces human
agency with a view that people are able to pursue opportunity.
Anti-capitalism: M. is a largely criticism of C. with the view that it is an oppressive system that
is contrary to human nature. Modern A.C. tends to focus on the distributive inefficacy of C. as
a few people end up with most of the wealth in a capitalist system. Destruction of the
environment through the creation of economic beds is also a common modern criticism.
Collective rights: Marxists place the needs of the community over individual pursuit of
opportunity, individual economic rights such as the right to freely produce and retain the value
you create are eliminated. For example, without property rights, a Marxist society may move
entire communities from their homes to build an infrastructure project. This embrace of
collective rights may seem into other areas such as the prioritization of the collective rights to
security over the individual rights to privacy.
Class struggle. M. views history and politics as a class struggle whereby the capital owning
classes seeks to dominate labor.
Historical materialism: M. is based on a materialist view of society whereby all features of
society are assumed to be based on economic structures. This discards all other elements of the
human experience in favor of the view that human life is simply a struggle to control material
resources. For ex, religion is portrayed as a tool of control of the masses as opposed to an
element of the human experience or as a human need.
Lumpenproletariat: L. is a Marxist term for anyone who is not employable. Marx and Engels
portray this class an unthinking and prone to manipulation. In terms of class struggle, M.
presents the interests of the proletariat, or working class and is wholly dismissive of the L.

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Totalitarianism: communism was implemented in the 20th century as totalitarian states such as
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It is unclear if M. can be implemented in any other
way in the real world at scale because it takes away individual economic freedoms. For ex, if
people aren’t free to own capital or start a business they may tend to vote for the return of these
freedoms in a democratic society.
How Did Marxism Come About?
In the 1800s, many people across Europe worked hard but still struggled to pay for the basics.
Even children had to work from morning to night, and workers often went hungry. Marx and
Engels saw that exploitation of workers, meaning treating people unfairly and gaining profit
from it, was a serious problem. The two writers eventually came to see all of history as a class
struggle. The common workers, which Marx and Engels called the proletariat, struggled to be
treated fairly. They were taken advantage of by the class who held power: the bourgeoisie.
Marx and Engels believed that in a perfect world, such classes would not exist. But the world
they knew was far from perfect.
Marx and Engels put together all their ideas, and the result became known as Marxism. Here's
how the dictionary defines Marxism: 'the political, economic, and social theories of Karl Marx,
including the belief that struggle between social classes is a major force in history, and there
should eventually be a society in which there are no classes.'
Marx and Engels thought the workers (proletariat) would become so unhappy they would rise
up and start a revolution. When this didn't happen, the two thinkers were forced to adjust their
ideas. They were trying to come up with ways society could get better over time. In the end,
they wanted all people free from being exploited and being poor. But this hasn't happened,
even today.
Marxism in literature
The foundation of Marxist approach to literature is very strong in reality. There is no literature,
where there is no subjectivity. Literary texts are woven around the experience of the human
who exists and the existence of many things which human perceives. Our living world can be
compartmentalized as society, history, culture, and politics under one big unstable
compartment called time. And no literary text and writer can by-pass any of these
compartments. This is what a Marxist approach does and it is relevant today and will be
relevant tomorrow also.
To Marxism, literature belongs to the superstructure which is a product of the base realities.
Marxist approach relates literary text to the society, to the history and cultural and political
systems in which it is created. It does not consider a literary text, devoid of its writer and the
influences on the writer.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Hunger Games are both examples of literary
works that lend themselves to Marxist ideologies.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, for instance, presents the relationship of
Huckleberry and Jim, a slave. While class opposition is presumed in that relationship, the two
characters nevertheless form a bond that would otherwise be forbidden in a slave-owning
society. Thus, the work presents an inherent contradiction between the laboring conditions of
slavery and the ideals of friendship.
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Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy, by contrast, presents a view of a society
ridden by poverty and scarcity for most of the population. The rich elite hold a competition
pitting the poor against each other and lionize that competition. Nevertheless, bonds of
humanity form between competitors from the poverty-ridden districts, hinting that the
competition is a mere ideological tool used by the rich.
Marxist theory suggests that if hegemony is maintained through ideology, the oppressed must
gain control of their own ideology. This is explicitly the argument presented by Virginia Woolf
in A Room Of One's Own; women will break the cycle of oppression by writing their own
stories and defining themselves as human, intelligent, equal etc. This theory also inspired
writers of color both in the US and throughout the world, to tell their own stories and redefine
the cultural image of the Black man, the Latino, the African etc.
Bakha’s struggle in the Untouchable of Mulk Raj Anand and Balaram Halwai’s struggle in
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger depict the social realities in India where social class has been
playing a vital role. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness describes the history of colonizers, their
politics with the natives and the white domination over the natives of Africa. Many such literary
pieces witness the social historical and political processes which happen in the real world.
Postmodernism
Post-modernism is the term used to suggest a reaction or response to modernism in the late
twentieth century. While postmodernism seems very much like modernism in many ways, it
differs from modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernism, for example,
tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history, but presents that
fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss.
Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionally, or
incoherence, but rather celebrates that.
Postmodernism in a nutshell is the belief there is no objective truth. Since postmodernism
doesn't believe in objective truth, things like logic, reason, science, God, judgment, etc. are
difficult to discuss because there's no right or wrong, just point of view.
Characteristics and difference between Post-modernism and modernism:
Because of some similar characteristics of modernism and postmodernism, critics some time
become confuse to differentiate one from the other. It would be more helpful if we discuss the
characteristics of post-modernism in compare and contrast to modernism.
Whereas Modernism attempts to find depth and interior meaning beneath the surface of objects
and events, Postmodernism prefers to dwell on the exterior image and avoids drawing
conclusions or suggesting underlying meanings associated with the interior of objects and
events.
Whereas Modern authors guide and control the reader’s response to their work, the Postmodern
writer creates an "open" work in which the reader must supply his own connections, work out
alternative meanings, and provide his own (unguided) interpretation.
Like modernism, postmodernism also believes the view that there is no absolute truth and truth
is relative. Postmodernism asserts that truth is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but
is rather constructed as the mind tries to understand its own personal reality. So, facts and

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falsehood are interchangeable. For example, in classical work such as King Oedipus there is
only one truth that is “obey your fate”. In contrast to classical work in postmodern work such
as in Waiting for Godot, there is no such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative here.
Whereas Modernism attempts to reveal profound truths of experience and life, Postmodernism
is suspicious of being "profound" because such ideas are based on one particular Western value
systems.
Whereas Modernism focused on central themes and a united vision in a particular piece of
literature, Postmodernism sees human experience as unstable, internally contradictory,
ambiguous, inconclusive, indeterminate, unfinished, fragmented, discontinuous, "jagged," with
no one specific reality possible. Therefore, it focuses on a vision of a contradictory, fragmented,
ambiguous, indeterminate, unfinished, "jagged" world.
Whereas Modernism places faith in the ideas, values, beliefs, culture, and norms of the West,
Postmodernism rejects Western values and beliefs as only a small part of the human experience
and often rejects such ideas, beliefs, culture, and norms.
Postmodernism in literature
Postmodernism in literature indicates a departure from modernism. Postmodernists attempted
to express the sense of meaninglessness that they felt as a result of the Second World War and
other major historical events. Postmodern literature is also considered an important exploration
of the human psyche and a creative and unusual form of artistic expression.
Authors in postmodern period are commonly reference the literary works that came before
them (known as intertextuality) and engage with elements of metafiction in which the
characters, author, or narrator acknowledge that they’re parts of fiction.
Samuel Beckett: Beckett’s “theatre of the absurd” emphasized the disintegration of narrative.
In the play Waiting for Godot (1953), Beckett creates an entire existential narrative featuring
two characters who contemplate their day as they wait for the ambiguous Godot to appear.
However, he never arrives, and his identity is not revealed.
Joseph Heller: Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) tells many storylines out of chronological order,
slowly building the story as new information is introduced. Heller also employs paradox (a
literary device that contradicts itself but contains a plausible kernel of truth) and farce (a type
of comedy in which absurd situations are stacked precariously atop one another) to complicate
the narrative further.
Gabriel García Márquez: Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) is an exceptionally
playful novel that follows several characters sprawled out over an extended length of time,
emphasizing the smallness of human life.
Kurt Vonnegut: Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969) is a non-linear narrative in which the
main character has been “unstuck in time,” oscillating between the present and the past with
no control over his movement and emphasizing the senseless nature of war.
Nationalism
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” – Albert Einstein.
Nationalism is the loyalty towards homeland/ home country and defending it as better than any
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other country. Nationalism essentially fosters a superiority complex which is rooted in the past.
For example the recent trend in India of looking back in the past and describing India as the
cradle of human civilisation also taking the credit for everything ever done by the humans as
being done by Indians.
Rabindranath’s view on nationalism
Tagore was born and brought up in a Bengali family and saw the kind of diversity in India. In
that backdrop he formed his meaning of Nationalism. He basically saw Nationalism as a threat.
He point he strongly made against Nationalism was that it does not merely make us see our
country as superior to others what it essentially does is it excludes “others” within the country
as well. For example in the recent times we are seeing the Muslims as the “others” who are not
part of the “great civilization from the times immemorial”. It was this very threat that Tagore
wanted us to understand.
Now when the freedom struggle was going on Gandhi was the leader of the masses and he
adopted the Indian way of living. He gave people charkha. He dismissed the Western culture
and because of him people saw modernization and western values as fake and dangerous.
Tagore, on the other hand, argued that the freedom struggle is not about dismissing the western
values altogether. He is of the view that Nationalism is hampering us to see the very fact that
the concept of modern nation state, liberal values of democracy and various freedoms have
their origin in the west. As such one must not reject the western ideas instead we must be open
to learn from the west. Similarly, he says that a Charkha might not be a powerful tool to instil
in our population the value of self-rule. Using Charkha when the rest of the world is becoming
technologically developed, in Tagore’s view, is absurd. Charkha helps people to appreciate the
past but it also make people reject technology which India could not afford.
Tagore wants to see a balance of respecting one’s own culture, history, tradition and the culture,
tradition and civilization of others. Tagore sees a bright future in reason and not so much in
nationalism. He does not want to live in past but in present and work for the future. He argues
that people must see what is their political right and fight for it rather than pointing out the
whites, the muslims, the christians or anyone else as “others” and fight them.
Tagore, like Gandhi, also does not favor violence. However, Tagore points out that once you
brew the feeling of nationalism in the masses violence is inevitable. This is surprisingly the
accurate prediction by Tagore. Our country witnessed bloody partition and the entire idea of
partition was not just because of the British policy of divide and rule, our feelings of
nationalism are also responsible for it. Tagore argues that hatred for one group can lead to
hatred for other groups as well, like between Hindus and Muslims. He wrote a novel on this
called - The Home and the World.
He wrote about Japan and admired it for the progress it had achieved before the World War II.
However, Japan soon fell into nationalism and committed atrocities on the defenseless Chinese
which Tagore found to be disgusting. He also parted his ways from Subhash Chandra Bose
when he raised Indian National Army to fight for the Japanese.
Finally, Tagore does not see nationalism or patriotism as the ultimate goal. He is a humanist.
He believes in humanity and wants to see that. Humanity is beyond religion, race, caste, sex
and countries and hence, can be intimidating for humans. Tagore was seen, at times, as
someone not very passionate about the cause of freedom movement and in a reply to Abala

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Bose’s letter in this regard he pointed out and I quote “patriotism cannot be our final shelter;
my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow
patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live”.
Drawbacks
May lead to the social exclusion of minorities: If people are told that their national values are
the gold standard and that everything else is not in line with the goals of a country, people may
become quite intolerant towards minorities since they will not recognize those alternative
values as useful for their goal to strengthen the national values of a country.
Some people may take it too far: Nationalism also poses the danger that some people may take
cultural values and ideologies too far. There are many examples in human history where this
led to quite horrible outcomes. One of them happened in German history which led to WW2.
Hence, if nationalism is used by the wrong people, it can imply serious dangers on a global
scale.
May prevent people to value other cultures: In general, nationalism may also contribute to a
state where people will not value other cultures and social norms anymore.
For instance, there are some people on our planet who still live a pretty basic and original life
in remote parts of our planet. Those people are often quite happy and there is no reason to
devalue the cultural values of those people. Yet, through excessive nationalism, the cultures of
those people are often belittled which is not justifiable under any circumstances.
May lead to the exploitation of foreign countries: Nationalism is also often used to justify the
exploitation of other countries. For instance, it is often claimed by politicians that in order to
assure the wealth of the local population, we have to exploit other countries, no matter what.
While the exploitation of other countries might indeed be beneficial for some countries, it is
quite detrimental to the exploited countries since they may never get out of their misery. Thus,
exploiting countries should not be the way to go from an ethical perspective.
Patriotism may lead to unhuman behavior: As we can see from human history, too much
patriotism can lead to serious adverse outcomes. People may behave in a quite unhuman way
and are quite easy to manipulate by government authorities.
Hence, in order to avoid those unpleasant outcomes from the past, we should avoid nationalism
or only promote it on a moderate level so that people don’t get the impression that it is ok to
behave in an unhuman manner.
Patriotism can be used for radical movements: In some cases in human history, nationalism
had also been used for the rise of radical movements, which in turn led to horrible outcomes.
Therefore, in order to avoid those unpleasant outcomes from the past, we should avoid
excessive levels of nationalism.
Immigrants may have a hard time: Since the level of tolerance towards minorities or towards
people from foreign countries tends to decrease through the promotion of nationalism,
immigrants may have a quite hard time since they may suffer from serious levels of social
exclusion.
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Nationalism In literature
Nationalism emerged as a challenge to colonialism, for the colonies to gain political freedom
from the Empire. For instance, in the poetry of W. B. Yeats, the theme of struggle toward
independence for Ireland abounds. In poems like “The Second Coming” and “Leda and the
Swan”, Yeats subtly incorporates the theme of Irish nationalism. In “Leda and the Swan”, the
myth of the birth of Helen of Troy was presented as a metaphor of the political situation of
Ireland. In poems such as “Easter 1916”, “To Ireland in the Coming Times”, etc, Yeats mourns
for the lives lost in the national struggle for independence, and analyses the effect that centuries
of oppression had had on the country of Ireland. “No Second Troy” shows how all intellectual
stripes believed that Ireland should be able to rule itself, but according to Yeats the means to
achieve such ends should not be violence and aggressive movements. The poem is based on
the political adherence of Maud Gonne, his so-called “muse”, whom Yeats was in love with
throughout his life, but opposed to politically.
Nationalism helped achieve political unity in the colonies, and instigated the people to stand
against exploitation and atrocities committed by the colonial government. The Bengali novel,
Ananda Math published by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, is even today one of the most
exemplar works in Indian nationalist literature. In the novel, the “santan’s army” sought to free
the motherland from foreign rule, and the ideology established for the exponentiation of
nationalist sentiment is the perception of nation as a religious and maternal entity: “We have
neither mothers nor fathers, neither brothers nor friends, neither wives nor children, neither
home nor any land. We have only one Mother.” Nation was advertised as a feminine figure. It
provided and nourished, and was something to be held close and protected. By playing on their
protective instinct, this form of nationalism aroused in people a passion for their country, and
generated a national unity. The idea of nation as a mother figure was thus popular and
influential in the nationalist movement of India. The effect of Chattopadhyay’s text was such
that the government resorted to banning the novel to avoid the chances of rebellion against the
British Raj.
The literary portrayal of nationalism covered many other aspects, and often engaged in
discourses such as race and racism, fascism and other ideologies, language development,
international law, genocide, and immigration. In addition, nationalist discourse can take many
different forms, with the central factor upon which a movement is based being, for instance,
religious, political, ethnic, or cultural.
Nationalism has also been criticized by a great many authors. The author of Midnight’s
Children (1983), Salman Rushdie showcased in his work how nationalist idea of creating a
modern, homogenized nation almost destroyed the nation itself. Rushdie used magic realism
in the text and mixed history and politics with fictional and supernatural events to tell the tale
of Salim Sinai. Salim here is an allegory for the nation of India itself. His fate imitates that of
nation, and through this character Rushdie portrays what India went through because of the
nationalist idea of creating a culturally homogeneous nation.
Literature breaks the boundaries created by nationalism. Partition literature, for example,
presents how national boundaries lead to violence and destruction. The short story, “Toba Tek
Singh” by Sa’adat Hasan Manto, is a prime example of this phenomenon. The text pointed out
the flaws of the Two-Nation Theory that was the basis of the division of India and Pakistan.
The Partition led to a large-scale loss of life and property, and the story used the trope of

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madness to depict this real-life madness in the political context. The protagonist of the short
story, Bishan Singh died at the border of India and Pakistan, symbolizing how the author
rejected the Partition. Another text based on Partition of India was Basti by Intizar Husain, and
it painted a picture of pre-division India, where the two communities of Hindu and Muslim co-
existed in harmony. Basti’s insistence on the similarity of the cultures of two different nations
underlined how the national identities that differentiated the people of the two countries were
actually constructed. These examples prove the critic Ernest Gellner’s words: “Nationalism is
not awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist.”
Nationalist Literature, however, cannot be limited to the few texts described above. The other
prominent examples include Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, E. M. Forster’s Passage to India,
Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, V. S. Naipaul’s Bend In The River, and many more.
Therefore, the ideology of nationalism is spread by literature, criticized by it, put into
perspective, politicized or de-politicized by it.
Eco-criticism
‘Eco Criticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment.’
It was proposed by the pioneer or the father of this theory in the USA, Cheryll Glotfelty.
Eco-criticism in literature
There is one writer whose works show ecology not only as an important or dominant theme,
but there is also concern for natural depletion that is taking place.. We are talking of Ruskin
Bond. The natural scenic hills of Dehradun and Missouri almost invariably form the setting of
his works and reflect his ardent faith in the healing powers of nature. He shows his worry for
the unthoughtful actions of man towards nature.
Through his short stories for children he has tried to convey an important message to
everyone, that is, the importance of nature in our life. In his ‘An Island of Trees’ the
grandmother reveals to her granddaughter, Koki, the deep bond that grows between humans
and nonhumans if only there is love and compassion. ‘No Room for a Leopard’ is about
deforestation and its accompanying aftermath. It presents the pathetic condition of the animals
after deforestation. In ‘Copperfield in the Jungle’ he shows abhorrence towards hunting for
pleasure which can never be justified. ‘The Tree Lover’, The Cherry Tree’, ‘ All Creatures
Great and Small’ and many others are all about the chain which binds man and nature, as in
the chain of ecosystem, showing interdependence.
He has always emphasized on the friendly relationship between man and nature and has
brought before us our need for each other. That is why we notice his pity for the unsympathetic
and cruel actions of human beings towards nature
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