An Ecofeminist Reading Of Oryx And Crake

Crowned as the Queen of Canadian Literature, Atwood is one of the most distinguished women writers in contemporary Canada. This thesis is to illustrate her fiction—Oryx and Crake (2003) in which Atwood visits the future and depicts for the readers the frightening global devastation and human annihilation. Since its publication, this fiction has drawn the attention from the critics. Some of them define this novel as a science fiction because of the extremely advanced science and technology mentioned in this novel.The thesis attempts to interpret Oryx and Crake from the ecofeminist perspective. Nowadays, human beings'culture increasingly places demands on ecosystem, which has already broken the ecological balance and caused terrible consequences. More and more species are dying out, all kinds of environmental problems appear, and humankind's survival is threatened. Meanwhile, the human society is not very peaceful either. The sex discrimination, class exploitation, racism, colonialism and neocolonialism still exist. The exploitation of nature and the domination of the disadvantaged group of human beings coexist and are closely connected. Ecofeminism just focuses on their connection and digs into the deep cultural root of the crises occurring both in the natural world and the human society—patriarchal ideology. With the development of our society, ecofeminism will turn out to be more significant and profound.The thesis consists of five parts: the introduction, three chapters and the conclusion. In the Introduction, first, ecofeminism and its basic ideas are briefly introduced. In addition, the following part is the literature review on Oryx and Crake,in which the previous studies on the novel are summarized. Furthermore, the significance and originality of this thesis are explained. Chapter One discusses the relationship between Margaret Atwood and ecofeminism, including the formation of her ecofeminist awareness and the embodiment of ecofeminist ideas in her previous novels. Chapter Two and Chapter Three analyze the ecofeminism ideas existing in the novel from two aspects. Chapter Two analyzes earth others in the novel from the ecofeminist perspective. It reveals the anthropocentrism ideas held by scientists and the protagonist in the novel who regard themselves as the center and the ruler of the ecosystem, while other creatures just exist for human beings. Chapter Three focuses on human others in the novel. It discloses the oppression and the domination that the disadvantaged groups of human beings suffer in the patriarchal society. The Conclusion summarizes the research that the thesis has been done to date in an aim of arousing more attention to the crises we are confronting both in the natural world and the human society. It hopes to create a harmonious society in which there are no bias toward genders, races and classes, and human beings and nature enjoy the same rights.