An Eco-Feminist Reading Of Love Medicine

In American literature of the1960s and1970s, the Indian culture becomes one ofthe most significant branches. Louise Erdrich, one of the most prominent IndianAmerican contemporary writers, is well known for her Indian tetra logy. LoveMedicine, her debut and representative work, featuring Native American heritage, ispublished in1984. The novel has won considerable reputations and many critics doresearch on it from different perspectives. Some of them focus on the feminism,culture and ethnic; others do some analysis focusing on the rich symbols in this novel.However, there is not enough detailed analysis, at least until now, about thetri-connections of nature, women and men. Eco-feminism is proposed by celebratedFrench scholar D’Eaubonne in1974and became popular in the1990s. It is acombination of ecological and feminist movements, exploring the interconnectionbetween nature and women. Eco-feminists hold the point of view that women andnature are the victims of patriarchal societies. This paper is intended to revealErdrich’s desire for the coexistence between humans and nature and draw people’sattention to the intimate connection between nature and women as well as the men’sdomination over the both from the perspective of eco-feminism to find theinterconnection between heroines and the Native American reservation as well as theheroes’ attitudes towards them.This thesis consists of five parts including introduction and conclusion.Introduction introduces Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine, and eco-feminist theory andpresents a literature review on Love Medicine at home and abroad. Chapter Onecenters on the victims of patriarchy. The serious damage and trampling of whiteassimilation policies on the Indian land is responsible for many of the reservationproblems such as poor soil and ecological destruction. At the same time, patriarchalideas force the Indian women to face the oppression both from the internal and the external. From men’s viewpoint, women are no more than the object of exploitationby men. Chapter Two dwells on the analysis of the similarity between destroyednature and persecuted women. It drops a hint that there must be an interconnectionbetween them. The environmental pollution motivates women to protect nature. Whatis more, women keep their attachment to nature and they also have to go on fightingfearlessly in order to regain their power and reacquire their social position. Besides,this part refers to eco-feminism in terms of different images integrating the Indiancultural features, such as the image of deer and ghost, the image of love medicine andthe image of water. Chapter Three explores the deconstruction of patriarchy and theharmony between nature and human beings. Finally, the harmonious relation betweenwife and husband are discussed, showing that the male and the female can coexist onthe earth in a harmonious way. As the aim of eco-feminism is to reconstruct harmonyin all life forms, the author hopes that the paper will help people to rethink therelationship between humans and nature and take some further steps to protect ourenvironment.