The Comparative Study Of The Mill On The Floss And The Border Town: An Eco-feminismperspective

George Eliot is one of the greatest writers in the Victorian Period.The Mill on the Floss is her famous novel which depicts a story that happens by the River Floss about a girl named Maggie,who spends a happy childhood in the mill but faces many difficulties and hardships after she grows up.Shen Congwen is a superb Chinese modern writer who occupies an important position in the history of modern Chinese literature.The Border Town is his masterpiece.The novel portrays a beautiful and sentimental love story of the young girl Emerald who grows up in the mountains near a small town Chatong.It is praised as the purest novel in the modern literary history.George Eliot and Shen Congwen are both famous writers in the world.The two stories both happen in a small town.Similar rustic depiction reflects similar ecological views of the two writers.This thesis intends to use the theory of Eco-feminism to compare the unity of nature and woman in the two stories.Eco-feminists believe that nature and woman connected with each other and they are both oppressed by the patriarchy society.In order to free nature and woman from patriarchy system,dualism which is the basic supportive concept of patriarchy must be broken,and a system of reconciliation of man,woman and nature must be built.The comparative study of the two novels reflects the Eco-feminism consciousness in stories that happen in different time and place.It awakens the western and eastern world to rethink the ecological problems caused by material civilization and make reasonable inspection of the modern world.