For Nature And Women

The 1990s saw the rise of a new school of literary criticism named ecofeminist literary criticism. It is based on the ecofeminist philosophy, coupled with the stimulation of ecocriticism and feminist criticism, thus it becomes a unique form of literary criticism. This paper is to research the basic concepts, issues and methods of ecofeminist literary criticism.This paper can be divided into the following parts:Part one is introduction. Since its rise in the 1990s, ecofeminist literary criticism develops rapidly in academe of Europe and the United States and becomes a new hotspot of literary studies. Ecofeminist literary criticism has also appeared in China. Ecofeminist literary criticism has much to be done in the West and in China. In this paper, the innovations and research value of this paper can be seen in the analysis on the concepts and reading methods of ecofeminist literary criticism.Part two is the positive research on ecofeminist philosophy. This paper holds that ecofeminist literary criticism is the penetration and expansion of ecofeminist philosophy in the field of literary criticism. Ecofeminist philosophy is the philosophy born in the times of environmental crisis, which is constructed in two dimensions. The first one is the critical dimension. Ecofeminist criticism aims at the world view of patriarchy, criticizing the implication of anthropocentrism and phallocentrism. In order to save women and the natural environment, it must expose and criticize patriarchy; another one is constructive dimension. With the critique of patriarchy, ecofeminist theorists focus on women and nature and explore the natural link between them. Ecofeminist philosophers believe that the link between them is objective, which suppressed and ignored. Ecofeminist philosophy is to re-discover the connections between them.Part three describes the theoretical construction of ecofeminist literary criticism. Ecofeminist literary criticism appears in the context of post-modernism. Therefore, it inherits post-modernist thinking, while it also differentiates from post-modernism. The most significant differences lie in that the latter insists on the constructivism, which is unacceptable to ecofeminist critics. The core ecofeminist literary theory is speaking for nature and women. It actually consists of three complementary aspects. Speaking for nature is the first aspect. An important source of ecofeminist literary criticism is ecological criticism, so ecofeminist literary criticism also concerns nature. Ecofeminist literary criticism is to make voices of nature heard. Ecofeminist literary criticism deems that nature, of course, not silent, and it has its own "language". But mankind is usually neglected to listen to language of nature, so the concept of language needs to be expanded, which should not be limited to the scope of humanity, otherwise it will be deprived of the right of nature to speak; second, it speaks for women. Ecofeminist literary theory adds the ecological dimension to feminist criticism, which can deal with some theoretical difficulties feminism faces. In the past feminist theory is always in a state of a paradox, which is that after the destruction of phallocentrism, feminist tends to put women in the central position. They reverse male / female, culture / nature relationship, women and nature get superior status, which is another kind of oppression. It just replaces one center with another center; intervention of ecological principles will solve the problem. Third, women are the main speakers for nature. Firstly, Ecofeminists believe that women have physical link with nature. Women's feelings for nature are far more sensitive than men, which is the biological basis. Secondly, women and nature are subject to the pressures of patriarchy; therefore, they have the same goal of overthrowing the patriarchy. Women will assume the task of speaking for nature.Ecofeminism critics try to read the text with the methods of confrontational reading and praising reading. Meanwhile ecofeminist literary criticism has dual perspectives, strong sense of ethics and feature of openness and dialogue.Part four is a specific interpretation of the text. This paper selects Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover as the text for analysis. Ecofeminist literary criticism finds a new perspective of analysis, which is not confined to criticize the damage of industrial civilization to humanity and sex relationship. It focuses on the damage of industrial civilization to women and nature. Such damages are harmful to the environment as well as the natural state and female intuition of women. Among the text analysis, with the positive interpretation of the ecofeminist consciousness of the novel, it also criticizes the shortcoming of the novel. There are misreading and abasement of nature and women in the novel, which reveals anthropocentric and phallocentric thinking of the author.The final part is conclusion. It is a new task to accept ecofeminist literary criticism within China's traditional literary theory. Judging from its progress in China, ecofeminist literary criticism still has a great deal of space to explore. It is a viable direction of Chinese literary criticism to use views of ecofeminist literary criticism to re-examine Chinese literature.