Gender And Nature In American Desert Literature:Exploring Nature Writing By Mary Austin,Edward Abbey And Terry Tempest Williams

The desert is a powerful icon of howling wilderness in the history of American culture.Since wilderness was the basic ingredient of American culture from which American civilization was built,people gradually realized the significance of the desert and their perception of the desert gradually shifted from distaste to appreciation.At the turn of the twentieth century,there emerged the rise of a desert aesthetic,with the desert becoming the topic of important nature writing.This dissertation focuses on the gender-nature relations by exploring the nature writing about American deserts produced by three American writers:Mary Austin,Edward Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams.Historically and culturally,nature has always been constructed in a feminine context:men are seen as conquerors of nature,and women are believed to be closer to nature because of their shared oppression by a society dominated by men.The nature writing of the three writers manifests new types of positive relations with the desert.Instead of being the oppressors of the desert or the oppressed with the desert,they show their appreciation and passion for the desert,and carry a careful and caring attitude toward it.There is some certain but elusive interaction between gender and nature in the three writers' works about the desert.Gender affects the way they perceive the desert,and the desert landscape as "a cultural practice" influences the construction of their respective femininity and masculinity at different stages.As a woman at the turn of the twentieth century,Mary Austin experiences the desert as feminine sublime with no attempt to master the desert as the traditional masculine sublime does.Instead of contextualizing the desert as a victim of patriarchal society,Austin constructs the desert as a powerful woman,an undomesticated ground that nurtures and empowers women via their affinity with the land.Therefore,Austin explores a new womanhood through the new found feminine freedom as well as through the feminist-oriented bioregion of the desert.Edward Abbey's eco masculinity is largely shown in the desert wilderness.While Abbey demonstrates a caring and protective view toward the desert,paradoxically,he has an equally strong impulse to dominate it as a private masculine domain to establish his ego.Abbey's defense of the desert is inherently illustrated by his eco masculinity.Terry Tempest Williams utilizes the erotic as power and introduces the body into her writing to explore the interconnectivity of the female body and the desert.Williams engages in a toxic discourse by combining the abusive treatment of the desert and the mutilation of women's bodies together.In order to create an open space of democracy,Williams proposes to extend the notion of community to the body of the earth so that justice can be provided for all living things.This dissertation consists of three chapters.Chapter One analyzes Mary Austin's feminine discovery in the desert.The feminine sublime-her aesthetic perception of the desert wild;the newly-gained feminine freedom and lost masculinity she observed in the desert as well as her feminist-oriented bioregionalism developed from the desert.Different from the masculine sublime which implies a reconquered mastery and superiority over nature,Mary Austin's feminine sublime demonstrates the absence of the observer's possessiveness and desires,which is a natural flow of her perception of the grandeur and sacredness of the desert landscape.Austin genders the desert as a mysterious and dangerous woman,a sphinx.Civilized white men fail to conquer and exploit the desert;instead,they lose their masculinity and are destroyed by the desert.The desert is revealed to be an undomesticated ally for women who have abandoned social conventions and constraints upon them and developed a deep connection with the desert.Therefore,there emerges a new womanhood promised by the wilderness,and Austin is able to propose a feminist-oriented bioregionalism as a model for America's future development.Chapter Two focuses on the paradoxical eco masculinity in Edward Abbey's nature writing.There is a strong connection between wilderness and American masculinity.Wilderness is assumed as feminine,but control over it is masculine,so wilderness is regarded as the domain of "true man" subject to his mastery,a decisive referent in constructing American masculinity.Eco masculinity shows a positive and caring attitude toward nature from environmentally conscious males,but it also demonstrates men's equally strong impulse to dominate nature as a private masculine terrain.Abbey constructs the desert as his country,an untamed and pure wilderness for his pure masculine life.In the desert Abbey has many outdoor adventures to exhibit prowess.Modern development and industrial tourism have endangered the wilderness,so Abbey radically defends the preservation of the desert,which he believes is an indispensable part of freedom.By introducing the body as a critical subject,Chapter Three intends to analyze the connection between the female body and the desert.In Terry Tempest Williams's nature writing,both the female body and the desert are erotic.The erotic as power can enable women to follow their unconscious desires and will,and then to achieve their freedom and independence.Women can develop closeness and gain reciprocity with the desert through the body.Williams engages in the "toxic discourse" by introducing the image of "bombs in the desert" in her nature writing,which breaks the silence of the contaminated Southwest and the mutilated female body and articulates the sacred rage on behalf of both.Williams extends the community from human to the body of earth,believing only by becoming earth can we eventually provide justice for all living things-plants,animals,rocks,and rivers,as well as human beings.By analyzing the different gender-nature relations manifested from the three writers' writing about American deserts,this dissertation concludes that Abbey carries the tradition of American literature by constructing the desert as a passive woman,a personal territory under his own mastery.Through a retreat to the desert and adventures in the desert Abbey exhibits and consolidates his masculinity.As an exotic landscape rejecting assimilation by society,the desert is treated by Austin as a powerful ally of women.Women in the desert not only refuse and subvert social gender politics but also form a new womanhood through the power and inspiration gained from the desert.Williams personifies the desert as erotic body.Women and the desert develop close and reciprocal relationships through the interplay of the body.Because the well-being of the desert is connected to that of women,women should articulate their silence on behalf of the desert,as well as the damage inflicted on their bodies by nuclear weapons tests.Though all three writers have shown a respectful,protective and caring attitude toward the desert,their interaction with the desert dramatically differs based on their gender.Abbey constructs the desert as a place of masculine escape,a primitive wilderness devoid of human existence;while physically and mentally,both female writers have developed a closer relation with the desert,hoping to build a harmonious and democratic community in the desert between human beings and all other living things.At the same time,by constructing the desert as wilderness-the opposite of culture,Abbey consolidates and preserves the current gender status quo,while both female writers employ the desert as a site of resistance against the cultural authority of patriarchal society to improve the status of women.By analyzing the three writers'nature writing about American deserts,we can understand the roles of gender and landscape in determining the interactive human-nature relations,so hopefully this dissertation can shed some light on the understanding of American desert literature,on American nature writing in general,on American society,culture and gender politics of different times,and on the unique literary region:the American Southwest.