Wet Ontologies and Transoceanic Trauma: A Mentzian Reading of Tara Menon's Under Water

Abstract

Using the hydro-critical framework of Blue Humanities, this research analyses Tara Menon's Under Water (2026), specifically referencing Steve Mentz's ideas of wet ontology, oceanic nonhuman agency, and the poetics of planetary water. The study fills a crucial gap in modern literary studies by situating itself within the larger "oceanic turn" in ecocriticism: the deliberate use of sophisticated hydro-critical frameworks to post-2020 cli-fi and transoceanic apocalyptic narratives. This work shifts the analytical attention to the water as an active agent, whereas previous research has mostly used anthropocentric trauma theory and postcolonial paradigms to read such writings. Using a qualitative research approach, the study carries out a thorough textual analysis of the novel's narrative structure, imagery, temporality, and spatial logic using Erin James's econarratological technique. By creating a "wet ontology" in which reality is fluid, immersive, and unstable rather than fixed and land-bound, the results show how Under Water methodically undermines terrestrial stability. Additionally, human-centered interpretations are displaced by the ocean's emergence as a key nonhuman agent that actively creates and builds climate trauma, exposing an unequal power dynamic between natural force and human vulnerability. The research also emphasizes the novel's transoceanic narrative structure, which enacts a "poetics of planetary water" by weaving together Hurricane Sandy (2012) and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The text reflects the systemic aspect of ecological disasters in the Anthropocene by presenting global water systems as interrelated through temporal compression, geographical collapse, and repeating imagery.  In the end, this study contends that Under Water formally reconfigures narrative and ontology to conform to hydro-critical realities in addition to representing environmental disaster. By showing how Mentz's approach is applicable to current climate fiction, it advances the field of Blue Humanities.