Environment and Women in Erdrich’s Tracks and Morrison’s Paradise: A Comparative Ecofeminist Study
Abstract
This study, in tune with Cheryll Glotfelty’s methodological propositions of ecocriticism and black feminist Patricia H. Collins’ contribution to ‘ecriture feminine’, studies the formation of the female subject in Erdrich’sTracks and Morrison’s Paradise. With the delimitation of the Native American and Afro American women’s writing,this study analyzes how these female writers from the marginalized communities have produced ‘ecofeminism’ placing the sexuality of their women and their relation with nature at the center of subjectivity. While the Euro American accounts of the history, culture and origin of the indigenous and Afro American subjects had projected stereotypical, negative images of the non-White people, Louise Erdrich and Toni Morrison, through the employment of eco-feminist narrative techniques, have reconstructed the history, beliefs, rituals, traditions, myths and cultural identity of their people. This comparative eco-feminist approach explores how Erdrich and Morrison liberate woman and nature from oppressive phallogocentric and anthropocentric strangle holds.
Authors
Mumtaz Ahmad
Ph.D. Scholar, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan
Dr. Ghulam Murtaza
Associate Professor, Department of English, Government College University Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Qasim Shafiq
Ph.D. Scholar, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan
Keywords
Afro-American Literature, Ecofeminism, Patriarchy, Native American Literature, Nature