A Textual Analysis Of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

Jane Smiley(1949-)is one of the most famous female writers in the contemporary American literary world.The novel A Thousand Acres was published in 1991,which profoundly describes psychology of characters and the arousal of women's self consciousness.It is known as "King Lear of American Midwest" and won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics' Circle Award of the United States in 1992 and attracted widespread critical attention in literature.Women and land are the two major themes.The novel adopts the first person narrative to tell the story from the female perspective,presenting the personal resentment between father and daughters,emotional barriers between wives and husbands,love-hate relationship between lovers and betrayal between sisters.Land,as the representative of nature in the novel,is recklessly exploited and the original ecological environment is destroyed by men's greed.Women share the same tragic fate with nature,dominated and oppressed by men in the patriarchal system.The awakened women and nature join hands together to fight against patriarchy.The creation of the novel embodies the obvious ecofeminist consciousness.From the perspective of ecofeminism,this thesis analyzes the state of oppressed nature and women in patriarchal society.The thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter one presents the introduction of Jane Smiley and A Thousand Acres,literature review,research significance,etc.Chapter 2 studies the formation of ecofeminism and its demonstration in A Thousand Acres.Chapter 3 focuses on women and nature in A Thousand Acres,which includes the relationship of women and nature and the awakening of women as well as nature in this novel.This chapter believes that women are nature's close friends in the same boat,and nature is women's final destination.Besides,this chapter also explores the similar plights of women and nature in patriarchal system,and their rebellion against patriarchy.Chapter 4 serves as a conclusion,including the major findings of this thesis and its limitation.The thesis attempts to interpret ecofeminist awareness of A Thousand Acres through a textual analysis:in patriarchal society,men's control over women and nature are closely related to each other;the arousal of women and nature has experienced a long period.In addition,based on the psychological description of the heroine Ginny,this thesis also finds that Smiley has criticized men's attitude towards women and nature:to regard the nature and women as the objects of exploitation.The thesis intends to call people's attention to ecological balance and gender equality,and consider how to save environment and liberate women and how to establish the harmonious coexistence between man and nature and between men and women.At the same time,the thesis is expected to extend and enrich current studies on the novel and broaden its research perspective.