University of Miami Scholarly Repository Open Access Dissertations Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2012-04-25 Ecowomanist Endeavors: Race, Gender, and Environmental Ethics in Contemporary Caribbean Women's Literature Debbie-Ann Morrison University of Miami, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations Recommended Citation Morrison, Debbie-Ann, "Ecowomanist Endeavors: Race, Gender, and Environmental Ethics in Contemporary Caribbean Women's Literature" (2012). Open Access Dissertations. 764. https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations/764 This Open access is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at Scholarly Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ECOWOMANIST ENDEAVORS: RACE, GENDER, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS IN CONTEMPORARY CARIBBEAN WOMEN'S LITERATURE By Debbie-Ann C. Morrison A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the University of Miami in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Coral Gables, Florida May 2012 ©2012 Debbie-Ann C. Morrison All Rights Reserved UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ECOWOMANIST ENDEAVORS: RACE, GENDER, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS IN CONTEMPORARY CARIBBEAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE Debbie-Ann C. Morrison Approved: ________________ _________________ Sandra Pouchet Paquet, Ph.D. Terri A. Scandura, Ph.D. Professor Emerita, English Dean of the Graduate School ________________ _________________ Brenna Munro, Ph.D. Patricia Saunders, Ph.D. Professor of English Professor of English ________________ Joni Adamson, Ph.D. Professor of English and Environmental Humanities University of Arizona MORRISON, DEBBIE-ANN (Ph.D., English) Ecowomanist Endeavors: Race, Gender, (May 2012) and Environmental Ethics in Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Literature. Abstract of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor Sandra Pouchet Paquet. No. of pages in text. (203) This dissertation examines the intersections of gender, sexuality, community, landscape, ecology, and social justice as they appear in selected literary texts by contemporary Caribbean women writers. Beginning with an awareness of the various ecological crises enveloping the Caribbean as well as with a firm belief that an analysis of literature might reveal inherent values regarding ecological sustainability and the need for propagating environmentally ethical practices throughout the region, the project uses Alice Walker’s notion of womanism to craft what it calls an “ecologically womanist” reading of these texts. While using Walker’s definition of womanism to help identify the values that characterize ecowomanist texts, the dissertation simultaneously places ecowomanist texts and ecowomanist inquiry in relation to ecocriticism and ecofeminism as they have been articulated by Western authors and critics. Chapter One of the dissertation, “Ecowomanist Gardens and New World Poets,” identifies “the garden” as one of the images historically central to human beings’ articulation of the self. The chapter proceeds by using this primary identification with garden imagery as a means of exploring the ways in which contemporary Caribbean women historicize, define, and redefine themselves and their creative processes in relation to the natural world. By beginning with a reading of Alice Walker’s seminal text, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens as well as selected poems from Revolutionary Petunias, the chapter mounts a comparative reading between Walker, who is arguably a New World poet in her own right, and Lorna Goodison, Olive Senior, and Jamaica Kincaid. In its consideration of Mayra Montero’s In the Palm of Darkness, Chapter Two, entitled “Island in Inverse: Mirroring in Mayra Montero’s In the Palm of Darkness,” considers the trope of mirror images, doubles, inverses, and crosses as they are defined in Maya Deren’s Divine Horsemen. The chapter achieves this by tracing Columbus’s original voyage to the Caribbean and by placing this voyage, and the socio-economic and ecological patterns that voyage set in place, into juxtaposition with Montero’s modern Haiti. The chapter suggests Columbus as a fitting counterpoint to Montero’s contemporary protagonists as the novel critiques environmental ethics divested of any considerations of race, gender, or religious autonomy. Chapter Three of the dissertation, “Landscape, Love, and the Ethics of Choice in Dionne Brand’s Another Place, Not Here,” asserts that Brand’s novel is governed by themes of choice and consequence and that the “ethics of choice” that emerge from those themes parallels a broader environmental ethics consistent with the ecowomanist leanings identified in other contemporary Caribbean women’s writings. For Brand, like the New World Poets and Montero, the ethics of place are inextricability bound up with a woman’s place in colonial and postcolonial structures. The final chapter of the dissertation, “Nature, Eroticism, and Communal Ethics: Social Justice in Pauline Melville’s The Ventriloquist’s Tale,” asserts the importance of what it calls an eco-human community in mediating environmental crisis and achieving environmental justice. Moreover, with its unabashed look at sex, incest and land politics among the Wapisiana of Guyana, The Ventriloquist’s Tale suggests the possibilities (and perils) in looking at erotic power as an integral component of communal agency and environmental sustainability. The dissertation concludes with a brief review of ecowomanist literature not included in the primary study as well as with some suppositions about the role environmental consciousness in actual and literary landscapes of the Caribbean. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I began working on this degree, before I had any real sense of what my project would entail, my daughter was just six weeks old. At the age of nine, she is now joined by two younger sisters, ages seven and one. Needless to say, this project was a long time coming. That it happened at all is because of the support of many incredibly special people. Beyond the institutional resources the University of Miami has provided me with, it has also placed me in the path of people—administrative staff, fellow students, and professors—who have been instrumental in the completion of this project. Time and time again they have given freely of their advice, intellect, and encouragement. Among them are Lydia Starling and Dr. Pamela Hammons, who have more than once helped me navigate the treacherous path of paperwork and requirements; Drs. Joni Adamson, Brenna Munro, and Patricia Saunders, who somehow managed to help me see my project in new ways without sacrificing my original vision. I thank you all. Of special note is Dr. Sandra Pouchet Paquet, the chair of my committee. Without your kindness and patience, I know I would have given up long ago. Outside of the University of Miami, there are also many people who have impacted my life and my work in ways they could never be aware of. Minca Brantley, Melanie Chin, Schmeka Cofer, and Shaib Rios, I thank you. For over twenty years you have been friends, sisters, therapists, financial advisors, and anything else I may have needed at the time. iii I have also been blessed to have a mother who would, as she put it, “drag me kicking and screaming, if necessary, toward the life I was meant to live.” Thank you, V! To my mother-in-law, Shirley, who from the moment she entered into my life, eagerly joined in the kicking and screaming crusade. And to my daughters, Jaden, Jordan, and Joelle, I also offer thanks. Thank you for showing me what it means to love someone so deeply and so purely that you would do anything to secure her happiness. For me, that meant finishing something important even when I didn’t know how. I thank your little eyes for watching me so closely and reminding me every day to actually live as the person I wanted you guys to see. Though my thanks may seem to extend to a litany of exceptional women, there are several extraordinary men who have also filled out this world. For the many “you can do it!” talks, I thank you, Kareem. Watching you work through your own educational journey with such determination and perseverance proved an inspiring model to follow. I would also like to thank my father, Joseph McCarthy, for the many trips to the library and for refusing to accept anything but my best. Thank you to my father-in-law, Bob, whose love of “schlock” movies provided the perfect sort of distraction from layers of theory and narrative structure. Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Robert Morrison. If ever there was a perfect balance of traits—humor, candor, intelligence, faith, culinary flair—you possess them. You are an amazing example of what a husband, father, and friend should be. I love you deeply. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 Creative Resistance to Violence ...................................................................... 10 1 ECOWOMANIST GARDENS AND NEW WORLD POETS ..................... 25 Flora-cultural Images and Meaning-Making in the Garden ............................ 28 Risk and Anxiety in the Garden ......................................................................