Abstract
Climate change, together with terrorism, economic depressions, and mass-destructive weaponry, is a source of international phobia for many people. The advancement in technology increases the competition among world powers and economic systems to develop their industrial enterprises. The smoke that emits from the factories, the pollution caused by the industrial projects, the excessive use of green gas result in the increase of global warming and have catastrophic effects on the ecosphere of the planet. Besides, man’s wrong practices even in agricultural matters are exhausting the natural resources of the lands, and they badly affect the ecological diversity and the wellbeing of the humans and non-humans alike. Contemporary feminist writers treat this international crisis as a priority and start to devote their writings to address ecological issues. These eco-feminists believe that their suffering from patriarchal oppression is not different from man’s exploitation of nature. Through their ecological activism, they endeavor to protect the environment and the planet from the selfish practices of the industrial companies. Barbra Kingsolver is one of the early pioneers of this emerging fictional subgenre. As previous studies of her works focus on individual novels, this study is an evaluation of her contribution to eco-feminist fiction in three major works: Animals Dream, Prodigal Summer, and Flight Behavior.
Highlights
In contemporary literary theory, Ecofeminism is used to explore the relationship between man and nature
The feminist activists, who advocate this concept, view nature as a female and protest the destruction man has brought upon the ecosystem, through industrialization and capitalism, and via the harmful military experiments and wars (Gruen, 1993)
While man is considered the destroyer and abuser, women are constructive and protective, things they experience and master as mothers and housekeepers (Shiva, 2014). In their campaign to preserve the ‘Mother Earth’, they blame man for pollution, deforestation, and desertification. These women, as Pamela Odih (2014) elaborates, think of finding solutions to the problems that face the world which culminate in a climate change and catastrophic natural disasters
Summary
Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer (2001), like her subsequent novel Flight Behavior (2012), is set in Appalachia. People act so hateful to every kind but their own” (PS, 2001) Deanna knows through her education in the life of coyotes that these animals are not as harmful as the ranchers believe them to be. Nannie does not believe in the supremacy of the patriarchal system over women and the natural world She defiantly tells Garnett that the lands do not belong to any human: “I walk all over your hills when I feel like it. (PS, 2001) Despite the fact that Lusa does not have enough experience in farm management, she tries to protect the land by avoiding monoculture She avoids killing predators, though she knows that these wild animals are feeding on her sheep. They try to disseminate ecological awareness among their communities, warning them against the consequences of their selfish practices on the environment
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