Analysis on Death of a Salesman : An Ecofeminist Perspective

Abstract

With industrialization further accelerating in the mid and late 20th century, man has devastated nature while seeking ease and comfort in modern life. Associating women’s movement and environmental movement, ecofeminism emerged at the historical moment when the contradictions between human and nature are increasingly intensified. Focusing on the relationship between patriarchal oppression of women and human domination of non-human nature, ecofeminism criticizes all the practices of domination within culture: racism, sexism, class oppression and the exploitation of nature. Arthur Miller’s famous tragic play Death of a Salesman convey ecofeminist thoughts ranging from men’s domination over women and nature, the oppressed weak to the harmony between women and nature. By using the method of exemplification, this paper intends to analyze Death of a Salesman from the perspective of ecofeminism, and thereby to explore the ecofeminist thoughts reflected. Thus, this paper found that Death of a Salesman shows the tensions between women and men, human and nature and implies domination within them.