Ex-centric Human and Natural Identities in Edna O’Brien’s "In the Forest"

Abstract

Drawing on ecocriticism and mathematics, this essay investigates
ex-centric natural and human identities in Edna O’Brien’s In the Forest (2002). The first part focuses on the ex-centricity of the three main characters – the forest, the murderer, and the female victim. They are depicted as being on the borderline of many disparaging identities. The second part deals with the two central episodes of the novel: a carni- valesque feast and the account of the murder taking place in the forest. The disorder caused by the suspension of reality in these two chapters not only displaces the three ex-centric identities from the borderline to the centre of the novel, but also maintains and reasserts their ex-centricity.