Digital Object Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n5.39
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0352-6052Stories originating from a bio-diverse region like Keralam feature narratives, art, and culture that are unique to it, self-sustaining, and deeply ecological. The culture and its practices reflect nature’s plenty and the hidden agenda of ecological preservation. In every context, from ancient times, nature is worshipped here as a goddess, symbolising power: enigmatic and consuming. The idea of Gothic, though a Western genre that originated in the late 18th century as stories of horror and fear, can be regarded as the first tradition in Western literature in which ecology plays a significant role. However, when one looks to the East, although there is no conceptual framework like the Gothic in literature, there is an atonement to ecology in their narratives originated from different regions. Here, we focus on the South Indian folklore of Kalliyankattu Neeli as oral lore and is traced for its Gothic stature. The article sets out to examine how the lore’s association with the landscape and gender complicates the distinction between nature and culture, the human and the nonhuman, and terror and sacred power. All these studies pertain to theories of the Eco-Gothic concept, as developed by Tom J. Hillard, which have evolved to understand the Gothic-calibre texts in this region.
Philip, Rose Mary, and Anila Thomas. “Striking the Balance: Eco-Gothic Explorations in the South Indian Mythical Folklore of ‘Kalliyankattu Neeli’.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 5, Oct. 2026, pp. 707-21, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n5.39.
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by the Research Centre for English Language and Literature (RCELL) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
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