Regaining Harmony with Nature: An Ecofeminist Study of Margaret Atwood's the Animals in That Country | ||
| هرمس | ||
| Article 10, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 2016, Pages 267-321 PDF (654.7 K) | ||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/herms.2016.395094 | ||
| Author | ||
| Essam Youssef | ||
| Faculty of Arts – Port Said University: Department of English | ||
| Abstract | ||
| This paper deals with Atwood's perspective of regaining the lost harmony between human beings and nature, adopting an ecofeminist approach to see how far woman and nature are related to each other, and how they are treated in a male-oriented society. The paper aims at shedding intensive light on the relationship between humans and nature, and how it can be promoted. Some questions about this relationship are raised in the introduction to be answered through analyzing a number of significant poems from Atwood's The Animals in That Country (1968), and the conclusion comes with the replies to these questions: Firstly, nature is a living whole of which we are an indivisible part. In modern society, nature is excessively exploited and terrifyingly endangered because of the use of destructive technology and harmful pollutants. Secondly, animals are part and parcel of nature and, consequently, they are negatively affected by man's irresponsible behaviour towards it. They are so massively killed and driven out of their habitat that many species have died out and others are on their way to extinction. Thirdly, a woman's relationship with nature is so close and organic that each of them affects and is affected by the other. In a patriarchal society, women, like nature and animals, are oppressed and devalued. Fourthly, Atwood asserts that in order to regain harmony with nature, human beings must make a return to it to reconnect with their roots because alienation from nature is crippling. Atwood believes that the cause of all kinds of oppression is the colonial patriarchal ideology of treating woman as innately inferior to man, and nature to culture. Therefore, the whole patriarchal system should be demolished to have a fairer society to women and nature, and to regain that lost harmony with nature. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Atwood; The Animals in That Country; Ecofeminism; Patriarchy - Colonization | ||
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