Monstrosity In The Shape Of Water From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

Guillermo del Toro is a prolific Mexican director.Among his outstanding commercial movies,there exist the worldly-known artistic fairy tale films and monstrous sci-fi films but few types of research have been focused on Toro’s movies till now,in particular to the studies on his monster film genre.However,with the debut of The Shape of Water(2017)that acquired the Oscar Award,Guillermo del toro obtains massive worldwide recognition and the film has also attracted widespread attention.The film has provided an elaborate and insightful description of the monster’s and women’s miserable situations in the brutal androcentric society as well as their efforts to make resistance to fight against the oppression.To examine the film academically,the thesis intends to employ ecofeminism theory combined with the monster’s perspective to explore the function of the monster in the film and tackles the monster’s role to extract the monstrosity and ecofeminism elements.It aims to explore: the role of the monster and how its role is presented in the film;the root of oppression over the monster and how does the film depict the oppression;and meanwhile,how does the monster accomplish the final reconciled resistance.The conclusion of the thesis is that the film not only concerns about female’s inferior position in the androcentric society and reveals male’s monstrosity through the monster’s role,but also makes an exploration on the development of a harmonious relationship between humans and nature,men and women in contemporary society.