Oppressed female protagonists and their survival strategies: An ecofeminist perspective in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

The current study draws on the perspective of ecofeminism’s main premise, which states that the patriarchal ideology authorizes the oppression of women and many other marginalized groups, which leads to the actions of the legitimization of the destructions of nature. In both Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, one encounters a significant problem regarding the female characters’ responses to and association with the natural world. Upon reaching a critical point of view in their lives, the female characters in both novels begin to display a tremendous realization of the importance of nature. Therefore, they start striving and liberating themselves via ecofeminist values and attitudes from the prescribed gender roles imposed on them. For this very reason, the aim of the study is to examine the complexity of embedding natural aspects within these texts in the light of ecofeminist theoretical framework to unravel the motives that might have motivated both the writers and their female characters to adopt ecofeminist values. The descriptive qualitative method was employed in this study using the techniques of textual analysis. The findings of the current research demonstrated that most of the black female characters have been pushed to the periphery on the account of gender, race, and class. However, only some female characters in the novel survive spiritually and physically by utilizing ecofeminist ideology and strategies. While Morrison incorporated social and political stance, Alice Walker’s ecofeminist stance reflected political and, more importantly, spiritual attitudes. Both of them supported women who crave for freedom and emancipation from the shackles of discrimination and bondage. The oppression of women, children, people of colour, the poor and the environment is interwoven and therefore must be battled simultaneously. Future research should study the comparison of women’s nature writing to men’s nature writings, through ecofeminist perspective. Further the later works can also be a good source of ecofeminist critical research.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Mohsin Alwan, Rafea

• T Technology (General)

Language dc:language

en