- 上一篇：从《傲慢与偏见》看英国十八世纪末的乡绅阶层及资产阶层的崛起
- 下一篇：中英政治新闻报道中模糊语的对比研究
3.2 The Main Ideas of Eco-feminism 4
4 Hardy’s View of Nature and Women 6
4.1 Hardy’s View of Nature 6
4.2 Hardy’s View of Women 7
5 The Analysis of Eustacia’s Tragedy in the light of Eco-feminism 8
5.1 The Important Reason of Eustacia’s Tragedy 8
5.2 The Social Cause of Eustacia’s Tragedy 10
6 Conclusion 12
An Eco-feminist Interpretation of Eustacia’s Tragedy in The Return of the Native
1 Introduction
Nowadays, not a few people choose to deplete natural resources to meet their own needs. They don’t care how much damage they have done to the nature nor do they believe there has any relationship between human beings and nature. To fight against the phenomenon, the ecological feminist theory has come into being.
Eco-feminism is believed to have been coined by French writer Francoise d’Eaubonne. It is rooted in the rise of modern environmental movement.
Eco-feminism thinks that women have a special connection to the environment. Eco-feminism opposes anthropocentrism and androcentrism. They call for a new understanding between human and nature.
Thomas Hardy is the writer with the consciousness of Eco-feminism. He thinks if human beings want to live in harmony with nature, they need to return back and be closer to nature.
In the paper, ecological feminist theory has been taken advantage of to analyze the reason of the tragedy of Eustacia, the heroine of Thomas Hardy’s novel—The Return of the Native. In the novel, Hardy said, “Edgon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly and enternally unreconciled thereto.” (Thomas Hardy, 2011, p.57) Eco-feminism thinks that women have a special connection to the environment. Women can easily be aware of the existence of nature, enjoy and appreciate nature. Eustacisa is the queen of night, the daughter of the nature. Nature is her patron saint, and she can’t live without the nature’s protection. However, Eustacisa lives on the heath without learning its meaning. She tries to get away from Egdon Heath, get away from the nature, thus leading to her tragedy. The plot illustrates to the readers that there is a close relation between men and nature and if a man wants to be away from the nature, there will be a disastrous ruin. The paper is hoped to fully awaken the people’s awareness of the importance of nature so that they can live in harmony with nature.
The paper aims to elaborate the causes of Eustacia’s tragedy to call people to pay more attention to protect nature and live in harmony with nature. Hardy writes this novel in 1878, during the Victorian age. As we all know, at that time, the industry has developed so much that the relationship between human and nature was destroyed. Eustacia is desperate to get away from the heath and she keeps trying to realize her dream but unfortunately she loses her life on the way to leave the heath. The fact shows that people can’t live a happy life without nature’s protection. If Eustacia chooses to live in the heath, maybe everything will be changed.
2 Literature Review
Eco-feminism is believed to have been coined by French writer Francoise d’Eaubonne and widely accepted by people. Eco-feminism thinks that women have a special connection to the environment. Eco-feminists call for a new understanding between human and nature. The rise of Eco-feminism helps arouse people’s attention to the environment and many people use it to analyze literature works.
Chen(2006) thinks that Eco-feminist literary criticism is the study of the relationship among literature, culture, nature and women. Eco-feminism, approaching literary studies from the double perspective of nature and gender, aims to reconsider and criticize culture, change nature and women’s position as an “other” and “margin” and arouse people’s ecological and feminist consciousness.