An Eco-feminist Approach To Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms

Linda Hogan,as an acclaimed Chickasaw Indian female writer,shares an important role in the realm of American literature.She makes her works shown in various forms,mainly novels,essays,literary criticism as well as poetry,etc.What Hogan’s works have shown are the distinctive ecological consciousness as well as her multidimensional perspectives on the relationship between man and nature,men and women,human race and culture which have gotten wide attention among literary critics;and furthermore,the strong passion,poetic and imaginative descriptions her works show are highly praised by common readers and literary critics.Solar Storms is her second novel which is undoubted one of her classics.This novel has a fully manifestation on Hogan’s deep concern about the plights of ethnic minority women,Indian tribes and the entire natural world.This paper attempts to explore the predicaments faced by ethnic minority women,Indian tribes and the entire natural world in Solar Storms within the framework of Eco-feminism,in doing so we could figure out ways to make ethnic minority women,Indian tribes and the entire natural world get out of these plights.Three parts are included in this thesis,they are: introduction;the main part and the conclusion.There are three chapters included in the main part.The introduction part first briefly introduces Linda Hogan and her novel Solar Storms,and then this thesis gives a literary review to present the researches made on Solar Storms by domestic and foreign scholars and critics.At last,this thesis elaborates the theoretical basis of this paper and its main framework.In the first chapter,the thesis mainly focuses on Hogan’s deep concern about the predicaments faced by minority women.Through penetrating into Hogan’s life background,this chapter gets close attention to the dilemmas faced by ethnic minority women.Under the patriarchal society,minority women are faced with the lack of identity,the destruction of their homeland,the hardship of cultural inheritance,and the arduous exploration of long ways of empowerment.Thus,to repair the relationship among ethnic minority women with interdependence and mutual care,it is crucial to achieve the reconstruction of the lost identity and homeland,whose loss are caused by the oppression of patriarchy and western society.The second chapter penetrates into the problems the tribes confronted,Hogan has shown her deep concern about these problems which are caused by the western society.In Solar Storms,Indian tribes are facing the depletion of natural resources which is due to western society’s plundering of their resources and its compulsory infiltration of culture into tribes,all of these have brought tribes the spiritual wasteland and cultural desert.Much worse is their guardianship of ancestral traditions and land has also become increasingly difficult.Accordingly,tribes must take measures such as joint resistance to reclaim their tribal territories and they must adhere to the local culture,in doing so,they can solve these problems.The third chapter analyzes and explores into the plights of the whole natural world.In Solar Storms,the entire nature is suffering on their efforts to safeguarding its right to subsistence;apart from this,the degree of imbalance between man and nature is deepening;and the journey to get nature empowered is so long;the crisis of the natural environment’s destructiveness is deepening.Indian tribes have such a strong affiliation with nature and land,they value much the close relationship between man and nature.The way of Indian tribes’ treating nature has an inspiration on protecting nature and on how to get along with nature in a harmonious way.In conclusion part,the thesis points out that Solar Storms embodies Hogan’s deep concern on the predicaments the ethnic minority women,the Indian tribes and the entire nature have been faced;at the same time,this novel also contains Hogan’s hope on their getting out of these plights.Hogan’s vivid descriptions on the problems they are facing inspire us to dig out the deep-rooted reasons of these predicaments so as to find out the feasible ways for getting out of these snares.Eco-feminism expounds the gender coercion,the oppression of power,the oppression of mankind over nature and it attempts to eliminate the dual social system and make the harmonious coexistence of man and nature become a realization.Hogan’s unique narration and her deep humanistic care which is shown fully in Solar Storms bring forth the hope for building a harmonious world for man and man as well as man and nature.