Total of 10 Pages Only May Be Xeroxed
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CENTRE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND STUDIES TOTAL OF 10 PAGES ONLY MAY BE XEROXED (Without Author's Pennission) GREENING THE GREEN SPACE: EXPLORING THE EMERGENCE OF CANADIAN ECOLOGICAL LITERATURE THROUGH ECOFEMINIST AND ECOCRITICAL PERSPECTIVES by ©Alanna F. Bondar A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of English Literature Memorial University ofNewfoundland July 2003 SEP -6 2006 St. John's Newfoundland Abstract According to Gaile McGregor, nature has largely been associated in Canada with a ''violent duality," that "is not accessible and [where] no mediation or reconciliation is possible." Faced with an unexpected, unexplainable, and unimaginable wilderness, Americans, Annette Kolodny theorizes, fantasized the pastoral ideal-that nurturing feminine landscape-into daily reality, while Canadians, according to Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, Tom Marshall, D. G. Jones, W. H. New, Coral Ann Howells, and McGregor, erased pastoral expectations, and replaced them with stories of disaster and survival. Margaret . Atwood explores "the North," within this tradition, as a place "hostile to white men, but alluring" (19), as a place explored, experienced, and colonized almost exclusively by men. Atwood challenges us to examine women's wilderness writing in relation to masculinist texts that paint Canadian landscape as "a sort of icy and savage femme fatale who will drive you crazy and claim you for her own." In compliance with Kolodny's theories of "pastoral impulse," Lawrence Buell's and Terry Gifford's "post-pastoral," and Murphy's "proto/ecological literature," Michael Branch theorizes how the "topological imperative" demonstrates an American "need to have a culture develop in the greatness of the landscape" (284). Canadians, in contrast, seem to have developed a 'topological departure.' Thus, for the Canadian scholar, ecocriticism poses many unique cultural and political complexities, and cannot be easily transplanted from Europe 11 or America and applied to Canadian literature. Though Canadians write profusely about nature, in general, they do not reflect an eco-consciousness in a nature aesthetic that strives towards biotic community as Gary Snyder, W. S. Merwin, A. R. Ammons, and Wendell Berry have in the U.S.A. I believe that an ecological consciousness can be found in the Canadian literary tradition-in both theory and literature-but that its continued love/hate relationship with nature stems from an inability to think outside of, or even aspire beyond, inherited European conventions. Focusing on, though not limited to women writers, this study explores the ways in which ecofeminist writers-as those who identify with the marginalized position of nature in society, and are likewise, identified with a mysterious and feared wilderness-environment-revisit the human-nature dynamic through an emerging Canadian (proto)ecological literary sub-genre. lll Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the time and attention my advisor, Dr. Lawrence Mathews, has dedicated to this project. Additionally, I extend my gratitude to Memorial University ofNewfoundland professors Dr. Valerie Legge and Dr. William Barker for their editorial comments, continued support, and advice. At the University of New Brunswick Dr. Donald McKay helped direct me in the preliminary stages of my interest in ecocriticism. I am grateful to The Association for Canadian Theatre Research (ACTR) whose encouraging members have allowed me to formulate certain broad ecocritical ideas, and specific treatments of ecocriticism in Canadian drama. Through their support, an earlier version of Chapter Five-'" Life doesn't seem natural:' Ecofeminism and the Reclaiming of the Feminine Spirit in Cindy Cowan's A Woman from the Sea"-was published in Theatre Research in Canada (Winter 1998). I would like to thank Dr. Denyse Lynde for introducing me to Canadian drama, and ACTR. In addition, the incredibly useful assistance I received through the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) and its enthusiastic members has been fundamental to the completion of this project. I extend a special thanks to Dr. Matthew Cooperman. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Department of English and Graduate Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland whose generous scholarship and teaching fellowship allowed me to pursue this degree. lV Table of Contents Abstract. 11 Acknowledgements ................................................................ .iv INTRODUCTION Theoretical Overview: Feminism, Ecofeminism, and Ecocriticism Overview ............................................................................. 1 Ecofeminism... .. 6 Ecofeminist Genealogy....................................... 8 Ecofeminism and the Political. ...................................... 12 Multifarious Factions .................................................. 17 Essentialism ............................................................ 22 Ecofeminism and Spirituality ........................................ 31 Ecofeminism and Deep Ecology .................................... 37 Defining Wilderness .................................................. 41 Ecocriticism ............................................................ 4 7 Ecopoetics .............................................................. 60 Canadian Ecocriticism ................................................ 63 In Search of the Canadian Thoreau ................................. 78 Interpreting Nature: Canadian (Eco)Literature ................... 88 SECTION ONE Moving beyond nature-as-enemy: Pioneering Canadian (proto)ecological literature ....................................................... 111 Chapter One Be(at)ing around the bush: Exploring a "violent duality" in Atwood's poetics ................................................................... 123 Chapter Two Pregnant(Sea) Miscarried: Ecofeminism and Michael Cook's Poetics of Denigration .......................................................... 173 Chapter Three Bearing her b(r)east: Women on (eco)feminist pseudo-wilderness spiritual quests ......................................................... 223 SECTION TWO Emerging ecological literature and revisionist mythmaking ................. 264 Chapter Four Home-wreckers/Homemakers: Grounding Earth-centred spirituality in ( eco)feminist poetry................................. 277 v Chapter Five "Life doesn't seem natural:" Ecofeminism and the Reclaiming of the Feminine Spirit in Cindy Cowan's A Woman from the Sea .................................................................. 328 Chapter Six Be-me-eating 'meat': Canadian radical ecopoetry and the ecofeminist politics of animal trafficking ......................................... 357 AFTERWARD Coming home: The Canadian quest for 'where here is' in the bioregional literary geopsyche .................................................................. 399 CONCLUSION .................................................................... 411 WORKS CITED .................................................................. 417 Vl INTRODUCTION Theoretical Overview: Feminism, Ecofeminism, and Ecocriticism One of the central goals of the feminist movement, bluntly stated, is to work towards the end of the domination of woman by the patriarchy, and to seek the recognition of woman's valid and valuable contribution to society. Feminism, at its core, is a struggle for equality, not a movement that seeks the transference of power. It is proper then that feminism has developed into a movement that celebrates women's empowerment through multifarious approaches to issues of oppression, and that works against any dominant ideology that marginalizes or excludes difference. Feminism seeks an "equality in difference" that can only come from an informed sensitivity to the issues and concerns of woman, and their relationship to a number "isms"-imperialism, classism, racism, heterosexism, sexism, etc. It is not my intention here to offer an historical outline or critique of the feminist movement, but rather simply to begin by acknowledging that the issues which concern contemporary feminists are wide-ranging, and equally politically patulous, extending beyond the narrow agenda which is traditionally associated with feminism into all areas that are concerned with relationships of power, including the central focus of this thesis-the environment. Ecofeminism, as an often-controversial branch of feminist theory, concerns itself with an extensive list of discriminatory practices that are rampant in Western patriarchal society. In particular, ecofeminism is interested in raising animalism and speciesism to the same level of awareness and relevance that surrounds feminism's attention to sexism and racism. Like feminism itself, ecofeminism challenges the constructions of patriarchal thought that function largely unexamined in Western society and culture. These precepts include the myths of 1) the logic of domination which includes the logic of the hierarchical structure that grants man dominion over woman, the land, and all living things; 2) the logic of dualisms that polarize man and woman, culture and nature, white and black, civilization and wilderness, mind and body in such a way that confers on woman and nature the status of "other;" and 3) the logic of the mind/body split which allows for a denial of the importance of the body and the planet in the name of more abstract ideals