Narrating other natures: A third wave ecocritical approach to Toni Morrison, Ruth Ozeki, and Octavia Butler

This study examines literary constructions of nature and the natural in works by women of color. Together, these chapters explore how oppressive environmental narratives are often used by dominant power structures to develop and maintain dominance and, by using a third wave ecocritical approach that puts ecofeminist and environmental justice perspectives at the center of ecocritical cultural studies, these chapters reveal how literature can challenge such narratives and create opportunities for counter narratives to be voiced.;Each novel discussed takes on a different strain of oppressive environmental narrative that has been co-opted or apportioned for a specific agenda, be it racist, capitalist, or colonial. Through fiction, Toni Morrison, Ruth Ozeki, and Octavia Butler are able to expose these narratives, to call attention to the damage wreaked by these narratives, and to produce counter-narratives which disrupt the idea that nature is a static monolith which can be looked to in order to justify an agenda and solidify an identity.;Chapter one offers an overview of ecocriticism and how it started and how it evolved. It discusses how first wave ecocritics, amidst the urgency to instill an environmental ethic in readers of literature, had a tendency to celebrate a seemingly universal nature that offered comfort and serenity. Chapter two examines Toni Morrison's Beloved and the history of African American women's views of nature and how the institution of slavery fractured African American relationships with the environment and rendered nature as a place of conflict for slaves. The third chapter discusses Ruth Ozeki's novel My Year of Meats and transnational environmental issues as seen in food production and consumption. It looks at how environmental narratives are used in order to privilege corporate power and profit, through a compartmentalized, controlled view of nature that relies on essentialized racial and gendered identities. The final chapter on Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy focuses on rejecting the "natural" through the use of science fiction that highlights and magnifies the ways that environmental issues are being manipulated and used to maintain existing hierarchies.