Structure

The Great Derangement is divided into three parts, and each part is divided into subsections or chapters that separate one line of thought or argument from the next. In the three parts, Amitav Ghosh discusses three separate issues that hinder humankind from waging a productive response to climate change. Each part features a main thesis that is broken down and substantiated with evidence throughout the subsections. Despite the three parts being discrete units, the subjects bleed into one another, as Ghosh shows them to be profoundly interconnected. Part I, “Stories,” revolves around the concept that contemporary literature fails to address climate change in large part because of the traditions of realism and individualism, which have been prevalent in novels since the dawn of modernism. Novels that lie outside of these traditions are essentially relegated to the literary margins. Ghosh suggests that the dominance of realism and individualism...