ECOCRITICISM

PRESENTED BY:
AISHA ASLAM
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Definition:
Ecocriticism is the study of literature and the
environment from an interdisciplinary point of view,
where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate
environmental concerns and examine the various
ways literature treats the subject of nature. Some
ecocritics brainstorm possible solutions for the
correction of the contemporary environmental
situation, though not all ecocritics agree on the
purpose, methodology, or scope of ecocriticism.
(Wikipedia)
 3

"ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between

literature and the physical environment. (Cheryll
Glotfelty)
ecocriticism is study of the relationship between
literature and the environment conducted in a spirit
of commitment to environmentalist praxis
(Lawrence Buell )
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Origin of Ecocriticism:
It is necessary to make it clear as to its origin. In fact, globally
speaking, literature itself originates from our love of listening and
telling stories. This love of man to stories is based onto the
richness of Mother Nature in things that fascinate and seduce
physically and inspire man with new perspectives to look at the
physical setting of everything they do.
Ecocriticism emerged as a study of the relationship between
literature and the natural environment in the mid-1990s.
Ecocriticism is a term derived from Greek oikos and kritis. "Oikos"
means "household," a nexus of humans, nature and the spirit.
"Kritis" means judge, "the arbiter of taste who wants the house
kept in good order (Howarth 1988: 163) in all regards.
 5

Origin of Ecocriticism
William Rueckert may have been the first person to
use the term ecocriticism (Barry 240).
In 1978, Rueckert published an essay titled
Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in
Ecocriticism.

Ecocriticism had its official beginnings as a discipline

in the 1990's. The writings of Thoreau and Emerson
fall into the ecocritical mould.
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Two waves of Ecocriticism:

Ecocriticism can be distinguished in two phases. The first
wave Ecocriticism rubs on nature writing, nature poetry
and wilderness fiction. The second wave Ecocriticism or
the Revisionist Ecocriticism is inclined towards an
environmental justice to the issues of social criticism, urban
and degraded landscapes.
As critics have pointed out, one of the reasons that
ecocriticism continues to grow as a discipline is the
continued global environment crisis. It aims to show how the
work of writers concerned about the environment can play
some part in solving real and pressing ecological concerns.
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ASPECTS OF ECOCRITICISM
a) Ecocriticism is Interdisciplinary:
It brings knowledge from different scholarly arenas to
bear on your analysis of the same person, place, or
thing. To illustrate the above aspect, lets consider
this example: A rose can be a symbol for love. A rose is
also a woody perennial that's part of the genus Rosa. A
rose is also a royal flower. A rose can be studied from
the perspectives of philosophy, botany, and history, or
more. And that's the heart of interdisciplinarity
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b) Ecocriticism is Nature
Ecocritics get into some pretty heated arguments about what
does and doesn't qualify as nature. In so doing, they're looking
to problematize humans self-centred views of the natural
world. So, they pit two possible definitions of nature against
each other:
(i) Nature = A place where humans are notboth physically
and metaphorically speaking.
(ii) Nature = everything everywhere. All nature, all the time.
Taylor-Lautner thinks that Nature is everything in the world
that isn't man-made: grass, the sun, wolves that aren't
specifically bred by humans to be scary super-wolves.
 9

Barry, in his essay on Ecocriticism in Beginning

Theory (2002), calls the outdoor environment as a
series of adjoining and overlapping areas which move
gradually from nature to culture:
(i) the wilderness(e.g. desert, oceans, uninhabited
continents)
(ii)the scenic sublime(e.g. forests, lakes, mountains,
cliffs, waterfalls)
(iii) the countryside(e.g. hills, fields, woods)
(iv) the domestic picturesque(e.g. parks, gardens, lanes)
 10

c) Ecocriticism is Environmentalist
Like that political movement of environmentalism,
ecocriticism also strives to make people care equally
about all creatures that live in any single
environment. In practice, any side of the
environment that is victimized by people in a way
should push be repaired as soon as possible so as to
seat that equality of human and nonhuman
individuals who should be cared about the same way.
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d) Ecocriticism is Anthropocentric
People tend to see themselves everywhere, in
everything. You will hear Man, for example say: that
leaf sure looks like my lover's hand. And that pig in
Animal Farm was my high school gym teacher. This
comparison made by man is intentionally setting for
him a place in literature, botany, zoology, and love,
which is ecocritically abusive and refutable.
 12

Regularly, when anthropocentrism enters the scene,

nothing can be analyzed without being compared to
or informed by human perception, affinities, desires,
and so on. Ecocriticism pushes back against this
navel-gazing tendency of Mans, and requires the
latter to consider nature on its own terms. Besides, it
asks Man to consider how they consider nature, at
different historical moments.
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e) Ecocriticism is Ecologic
Etymologically, Eco, from the Greek oikos, means home, while
ology, the study of. So Ecology is the study of home. This
messing around with language is of less importance to this
study, nevertheless, the elements that the study essentially
refers to are also part of ecocriticism, that is, the study of how
living things interact with each other and their environments.
The illustrative terms should be the example of how mice and
frogs sometimes befriend each other in India. And the results
are positively adorable, fascinating. The relationship
described above is all what ecocriticism dreams of.
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f) Ecocriticism is New Materialism

Great Thinkers like to talk about how humans cannot be
reduced to their physical properties, because people are really
special. The same way, the New Materialists say that People
are made up of their biological bits, which means that even
human thought, and human creativity, that is, those idealistic
qualities Man often likes to believe elevate him above other
animals, are just part and parcel to human physiology.
The important point is this: this branch of Ecocriticism uses
biology and other natural sciences to inform how we
understand the relations between people and natureboth in
great texts, and in the world at large.
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g) Ecocriticism is science
It has been already mentioned that this theory is quite
interdisciplinary. It gets its fundamental stuff from various
domains which treat of the interaction between creatures. That is
how it is also science because it does all what any science does.
Ever since, it becomes a rigorous, empirical business that people
like you get into when they observe something about the world,
then make a hypothesis about how that thing works, and then test
their hypothesis. In the preceding lines, Henry David Thoreau has
been said to have done an adventure in the bush where he
observed growing beans and happened to produce a literary work
of fame today on the basis of the hypotheses he drew from the
natural behavior. And that was the beginning of ecocriticism.
 16

If really this definition of science is closely describing

what David Thoreau did, so ecocriticism is science.
In science today, for example, people are observing
new diseases and attempting to cure them (Curing
cancer and HIV is expected from those observations).
This will be made to restore the harmony that
abnormal conditions of the body or the mind have
destroyed. New life, a world without trouble is the
goal of each of the steps that science/ecocriticism set.
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h) Ecocriticism is Wilderness

Ecocriticism tends to bring together natural aspects

of this world and the fruits of technology. It calls
therefore that magical land that is far away from
human cities, cars, annoying appliances, and
repetitive office work, the wi-fi router wilderness.
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i) Ecocriticism is Conservative
The conservative aspect of this theory is meant by the
fact that it is a powerful tool of speech for the defence
of preserving this beautiful world we inhabit for
future generations of humans. Conservationists,
then, spend a lot of time thinking up ways to reduce
people's negative impact on the environment (which
is home to many, many species of squirrel), while
also promoting the natural order of things.
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The Main Tasks of Ecocritics

They re-read the text from an ecocentric perspective and identify the
natural world.
They apply a range of ecocentric concepts, using them of things other
than the natural world--such as growth and energy, balance and
imbalance and sustainable or unsustainable uses of energy and resources.
They give special canonical emphasis to writers who foreground nature
as a major part of their subjects.
They extend the range of literary-critical practice, reflecting
topographical material such as essays, travel writing, memoirs, and
regional literature.
They turn away from the social constructivism and linguistic
determinism to ecocentric values of ethical responsibility.
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Questions Ecocritics Ask about

Literature
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Ecocritical Questions
What does Nature represent in the essay? Can you
interpret it within an ecocritical framework?
Which image or symbolic representation of nature
does the author construct?
What role does nature and the landscape play here?
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Ecocritical Questions
Are the values expressed in this play consistent with
ecological wisdom?
How do nature and human emotion relate to each
other in the text? How does nature affect emotions?
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Ecocritical Questions
What is the relationship between humans and the
environment in this text? Is the environment
commodified?
Do men write about nature differently than
women do?
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Ecocritical Questions
How has the concept of wilderness changed over time?
In what ways and to what effect is the environmental
crisis seeping into contemporary literature and popular
culture?
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Ecocriticism
As it now exists in the US, takes its literary
foundations from three American writers whose
work celebrates nature, the life force, and the
wilderness
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Annie Dillard
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Ralph Waldo Emerson

The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are truly adjusted to
each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His
intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of
nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.
-- On Nature (1836)
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Henry David Thoreau

"I went to the woods because

I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential
facts of life, and see if I could
not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived."
Walden (1854)
 28

Henry David Thoreau wasn't the best student. And

he didn't comb his hair, and he wore a neck beard
that generally grossed people out, especially his
friend Margaret Fuller. All in all, he was the perfect
kind of guy to live by himself in the woods. Though
Ecocriticism as such is just an itty bitty baby theory
these days, So he took off and found himself a pond,
which is actually a rather sizeable lake, but we
digress, and lived off the land there for a couple
years.
 29

He had a lot of help from the wealthy Ralph Waldo

Emerson and other Transcendentalists. The small
cabin he ended up building and writing from was
actually on Emerson's property. While there, he
wrote gobs of prose about growing beans and
watching bugs and the importance of walking and
how people are generally out of touch with the
natural world. The method he actually applied is not
clearly mentioned, but it should be agreed that the
message he was trying to convey was clear: the
 30

This is nature's creed, and Thoreau thought it should

inspire all of society's institutions. He thought we
should model our human world after the natural one.
Walden is Thoreau's masterpiece, and it remains the
foundational text for Ecocriticism, even though it
was never intended to be used to analyze literary
texts.
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Annie Dillard

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)

A young woman in 20th century Virginia tries to live like Thoreau, with revelatory
results: "In nature I find grace tangled in a rapture with violence; I find an intricate
landscape whose forms are fringed in death; I find mystery, newness, and a kind of
exuberant, spendthrift energy."
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Ecocriticism was heralded by the publication of two

highly influential works, both published in 1996.
The first work:
The Ecocriticism Reader edited by Cheryll
Glotfelty and
Harold Fromm.
 33

The second work:

The Environmental Imagination

By: Lawrence Buell
Ecofeminism
Presented by
Sidra Khalid
 To quote Professor Mary Mellor, Ecofeminism is a movement
that sees a connection between the exploitation and degradation
of the natural world and the subordination and oppression of
women... Ecofeminism brings together elements of the feminist
and green movements, while at the same time offering a
challenge to both.

Ecofeminism emerged in the 1970s with an increasing

consciousness of the connections between women and nature.
The term, ecofeminism, was coined by French writer Francoise
dEaubonne in her book Le Fminisme ou la Mort (1974).
 From arguments that there are particular and significant
connections between women and nature, ecofeminism relates the
oppression and domination of all subordinate groups (women,
people of color, children, the poor) to the oppression and
domination of nature (animals, land, water, air, etc.).
All of these subordinate groups have been subject to oppression,
domination, exploitation, and colonization from the Western
patriarchal society that emphasizes and values men.
Ecofeminists believe that these connections are illustrated
through traditionally "feminine" values such as reciprocity,
nurturing and cooperation, which are present both among women
and in nature.
Background

Movements of the 1970s and 1980s:

In northern India in 1973, women took part in the Chipko movement to
protect forests from deforestation. They clung to the trees in an act of peaceful
protest so that loggers could not cut them down.
In Kenya in 1977, the Green Belt Movement was initiated. It is rural tree
planting program led by women, which was designed to help prevent
desertification in the area. The program created a 'green belt' of at least 1,000
trees around villages.
In 1978 in New York, Lois Gibbs led her community in protest after
discovering that their entire neighborhood, Love Canal, was built on top of a
toxic dump site. The toxins in the ground were causing illness among children
and birth defects in babies. The Love Canal movement eventually led to the
evacuation and relocation of nearly 800 families by the federal government.
 In 1980 and 1981, a peaceful protest was organized
at the pentagon. Women stood, hand in hand,
demanding equal rights (including social,
economic, and reproductive rights) as well as an
end to militaristic actions taken by the government
and exploitation of the community (people and the
environment). This movement is known as the
Women's Pentagon Actions.

All these actions are examples of a worldwide

movement, increasingly known as ecofeminism,
dedicated to the continuation of life on earth.
Types of Ecofeminism
Liberal Ecofeminism
Cultural Ecofeminism
Spiritual Ecofeminism
Social Ecofeminism
Liberal Ecofeminism
Twentieth century liberal feminism was inspired
by Simone de Bcauvoirs The Second Sex
(1949) and by Betty Friedans The Feminine
Mystique (1963).
De Beauvoir argued that women and men were
biologically different, but that women could
transcend their biology, freeing themselves from
their destiny as biological reproducers to assume
masculine values.
The liberal phase of the womens movement that
exploded in the 1960s demanded equity for
women in the workplace and in education as the
 Rachel Carson made the question of life on earth
a public issue. Her 1962 Silent Spring focused
attention on the death-producing effects of
chemical insecticides accumulating in the soil and
tissues of living organisms.
Cultural Ecofeminism

Cultural feminism developed in the late 1960s and 1970s with

the second wave of feminism. Cultural ecofeminism is a
response to the perception that women and nature have been
mutually associated and devalued in western culture.
Sherry Ortners 1974 article, Is Female to Male as Nature is to
Culture, posed the problem that motivates many ecofeminists.
Ortner argued that, women have been seen as closer to nature
because of their physiology, social roles, and psychology.
Physiologically, women bring forth life from their bodies.
Socially, childrearing and domestic caretaking have kept
married women close to the hearth and out of the workplace.
 Psychologically, women have been viewed as irrational and with
less capacity for abstract thinking.

To cultural ecofeminists the way out of this dilemma is to elevate

and liberate women and nature through direct political action.

Cultural ecofeminism celebrates the relationship between women

and nature through the revival of ancient rituals centered on
goddess worship, the moon, animals, and the female reproductive
system. A vision in which nature is held in esteem as mother and
goddess is a source of inspiration and empowerment for many
ecofeminists.
 Many women activists argue that male-designed and
produced technologies neglect the effects of nuclear
radiation, pesticides, hazardous wastes, and household
chemicals on womens reproductive organs and on the
ecosystem. They protest against radioactivity from nuclear
wastes, power plants, and bombs as a potential cause of
birth defects, cancers, and the elimination of life on earth.

Women organized citizens to demand toxic clean-ups and

started Love Canal movement.
Spiritual ecofeminism
Spiritual ecofeminism is another branch of ecofeminism, and is
popular among ecofeminist authors such as Starhawk, Carol J.
Adams, and more.
Starhawk is an American writer and activist, known for her work in
spiritualism and ecofeminism. She advocates for social justice in
issues surrounding nature and spirit.
Starhawk calls this an earth-based spirituality, which recognizes that
the Earth is alive, that we are interconnected, as well as a community.
Spiritual ecofeminism is not linked to one specific religion, but is
centered around values of caring, compassion, and non-violence. She
believes in fighting oppression through the importance of spirituality,
eco consciousness and sexual and gender liberation.
Social ecofeminism

Janet Biehl states ;

Social ecofeminism accepts the basic tenet of social ecology,
that the idea of dominating nature stems from the domination
of human by human. Only ending all systems of domination
makes possible an ecological society, in which no states or
capitalist economies attempt to subjugate nature, in which all
aspects of human nature-including sexuality and the passions
as well as rationality-are freed.

Social ecofeminism advocates the liberation of women

through overturning economic and social hierarchies.
 Social ecofeminism acknowledges differences in male and
female reproductive capacities, but rejects the idea that these
entail gender hierarchies and domination.
It advocates womens reproductive, intellectual, sensual, and
moral freedom. Biology, society, and the individual interact
in all human beings giving them the capacity to choose and
construct the kinds of societies in which they wish to live.
But in her 1991 book, Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics,
Janet Biehl withdrew her support from ecofeminism, and
likewise abandoned social ecofeminism, on the grounds that
the concept had become so fraught with irrational, mythical,
and self-contradictory meanings that it undercut womens
hopes for a liberal, ecologically-sane society.
Major critiques
The major criticism of ecofeminism is that it is
essentialist. The ascribed essentialism appears in two
main areas:

One is the implicit assumption in certain ecofeminist

writings that there is some connection between
women and nature that men either do not possess or
cannot experience. And, why female activities such as
birth and childcare should be taken as more
"natural" than some traditional male activities
 As opposed to radical and liberation-based
feminist movements, mainstream feminism strives
to promote equality within the existing social and
political structure, such as making it possible for
women to occupy positions of power in business,
industry and politics, using direct involvement as
the main tactic for achieving pay equity and
influence.
In contrast, many ecofeminists would stand in
opposition to active engagement in these arenas,
as these are the very structures that the movement
intends to dismantle.
ECOCRITICISM & LITERATURE
PRESENTED BY:
WAHEEDA REHMAN
What is literature?

An ecocritic believes that literature is a type of living,

breathing being. Like any other animal, then,
storytelling evolvesparticularly as scientific
knowledge of the natural world expands.
Have you ever thought about how Mary Shelley's
horrible miscarriage must've influenced the writing
of Frankenstein? What about the horrible weather
during her summer vacation? How do you think that
molded her prose?
What is an author?

So the ecocritics say: an author is both a product of human culture and

a specimen of Homo sapiens, made of meat and blood and bone. So,
whether the author is aware of it or not, she writes just as much from
chemistry as she does from her imagination. An easy example of this is
just how many writers have, historically, liked to write while on drugs
of some kind.
The Greek and Roman poets had their wine. The Romantic poets loved
them some opium. And the Beat poets were fans of marijuana and just
about every other chemical they could get their hands on. Keep in
mind that we're not condoning drug use here, budding author-types.
But if you experiment with reading literature like you read the periodic
table, ecocritical analysis just might blow your mind.
What is a reader?

Us human-things can read texts as well with our noses and ears as we
can with our eyes and learned rationality, the ecocritic argues. All the
smells and sounds and chemicals floating around in our great books tell
us a lot about our texts and ourselves.
Let us point this point to you another way: Ecocriticism compels the
reader to filter the words on the page through our bodily senses. Smell
the orphanage from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist Feel the oppressive
heat and humidity from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Then ask yourself, dear reader, questions like: How does one's climate
influence mythology and storytelling? For example, do you think Santa
Claus makes much sense to a Zimbabwean whose house has no
chimney? Hm. These are the important questions in life, we think.
Ecocritical Analysis - Animal Farm by George Orwell
 In this exciting tale, some pigs lead a revolt against a drunk
farmer who doesn't take good care of his farm. They tout the
virtues of animalism in a cool and groovy manifesto but then
the pigs become tyrants themselves.
They kill off other animals and turn human-like: they start
wearing pants, drinking alcohol, and being all-around self-
centered jerks.
But why do the ecocritics care extra much about this story?
Because Orwell's allegory isn't just about the dangers of mob
rule and fascism. It can be read as an ecological allegory as well.
You want to mess up the natural world? Act like a human being.
 Rachel Carson was one of the first eco-activists of the modern
age to go deep into why our "civilized" habits are dangerous to
the lives of other species and their natural habitats. As she
says, we are "living in a world that is just not quite fatal."
Ecocriticism helps us find parallels between Carson's critique
of human ecological behavior, particularly the spreading of
pesticides, and the frightening transformation of Orwell's pigs
as they start to behave like humans.
As soon as they adopt more human-like behaviors and
aesthetics, they begin to spread fascism throughout the farm.
 Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were
all alike. No question, now, what had happened to
the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked
from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig
to man again; but already it was impossible to say
which was which.
 Before they turn all evil and human-like, the animals on the farm
revolt against the humans because they're treating them poorly. The
drunken Mr. Jones is not a good steward of the farm and Old Major,
the father of the animal revolution, compares humans to parasites.
Gross, but sort of true. Humans live off the meat and work of the
animal, and give very little in return. That's a pretty one-way
relationship right there.
Rachel Carson, Eco-Activist Extraordinaire, also says that humans
act like parasites. They spread out across the land, over-use the dirt to
over-produce food, and, in that process, cover Mother Earth in
harmful pesticides. So really, Orwell and Carson have got a lot in
common.
 It doesn't take long before the once-revolutionary
pigs become fascists themselves. They start to drink
and play poker and enjoy the excesses of the farm
just as humans have done for a very long time. And
while these scenes do, in part, allegorize Stalin's
fascist regime, they also depict Big Agri-Business.
By applying Carson's ecological critique to Animal
Farm, we start to see the fat faces of chemical
companies and massive farm operations in those
pigs-cum-humans
Ecocritical Analysis - Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller flashes us some very well-placed bits of nature

in Death of a Salesman. So our favourite nature-minded
thinkers have a lot to dig into in this text.
The play itself follows the story of Willy Loman, an older
man who's losing his job as a salesman, and that whole
process kind of makes him lose his mind. All he can think
about is helping his son Biff become successful and well-
liked.
Biff was a high school quarterback, after all. Everyone who's
anyone knows that when you're a teenage football star, the
American dream is just one short pass-play away
 But what's ecological about the very human
disappointments of Willy Loman, a guy who just
wants to be liked by his peers and his family and, for
once, be recognized for his efforts?
His madness, that's what. As Willy loses his marbles
toward the end of the play, he becomes obsessed with
planting a garden.
He gets super interested in how the city has
overtaken green spaces. Some part of his mushy
brain understands that it's the pressures of modern
"A man can't go out the way he came in, Ben, a man
has got to add up to something."
"Nothing's planted. I don't have a thing in the
ground."
 It's almost as if Arthur Miller and Ed Abbey sat down and created Willy
Loman together (while eating steaks and drinking whiskey, of course). Abbey
uses profanity here because he saw so many Willy Lomans in society, all
stumbling through life in these degraded conditions.
In the 1950s, Miller couldn't use the naughty words. He was censored. But he
had Willy and his wife worry about "the constant petty tyranny" of their
refrigerator, which broke down just as they get it paid off. And our boy Willy
dies in a car, one of those great objects that daily disconnect us from our
environments.
Still, where does Willy turn in his darkest hour? A garden. "I don't have a
thing in the ground."
That little bit of wilderness, of grounding in nature and the stuff that's really
important about life, becomes as important to Willy as "water and good
bread."