A Metabolic Rift Within the Tides: A Marxist Ecocritical Reading of “Rise: From One Island to Another”

The Criterion

The Criterion: An International Journal in English
Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Open Access
CC BY 4.0
Crossref DOI


A Metabolic Rift Within the Tides: A Marxist Ecocritical Reading of “Rise: From One Island to Another”


Ananya Mukherjee

World Literature
Pages 1170-1184
Article #72
2026V17N4158

DOI

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.72

Registered with Crossref · Open Access · CC BY 4.0

Abstract

This paper presents a Marxist-Ecocritical analysis of the poem “Rise: From One Island to Another”, by examining the effects of climate crisis and capitalist accumulation by drawing on the cheap nature model proposed by Jason W. Moore, the concept of fossil capital and the idea of metabolic rift developed by John Bellamy Foster. The study explores how peripheral island communities are systematically exploited and sacrificed to sustain metropolitan growth. Furthermore, it integrates the concept of slow violence as explained by Rob Nixon in order to articulate the gradual mechanics of submersion of the islands. Ultimately, by applying Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene, the analysis highlights an emergence of radical horizontal solidarity forged across dispossessed geographies as resistance against the environmental devastation that is inflicted upon them.

Keywords
EcocriticismMetabolic RiftCheap NatureSlow ViolenceChthulucene.

Cite This Article — MLA 9th Edition

Ananya Mukherjee. “A Metabolic Rift Within the Tides: A Marxist Ecocritical Reading of “Rise: From One Island to Another”.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1170-1184. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.72.

Article History
Received
29 Jul 2026
Accepted
23 Aug 2026
Published Online
31 Aug 2026

Journal
The Criterion: An International Journal in English
Volume / Issue
Vol. 17, No. 4 (August 2026)
Pages
1170-1184
Article ID
2026V17N4158
ISSN
0976-8165

Open Access
CC BY 4.0
Crossref DOI

Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
the-criterion.com

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