A Study Of The Process Of The Disillusion Of Spiritual Return In Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, My Antonia And A Lost Lady From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

Willa Cather was the famous female writer at the 20th century in the United States. O, Pioneers!, published in 1913, and My Antonia which was published in 1918 are regarded as Willa Cather's most outstanding representative works among her frontier novels on early days. In the two novels, Willa Cather placed the stories in the Nebraska Prairie, and described two female characters'experiences on fighting against the wilderness, opening up the wasteland, building up the life. Cather published A Lost Lady in 1923, a medium-length novel, one of successful works in Cather's later period. Although the background of this novel was still in Nebraska Prairie, Cather expressed in the novel that the former peaceful prairie gradually lost its value in front of the modern industrial civilization which was represented by the Eastern culture.This paper will analyze the process of disillusion implied in the three novels from the ecofeminist perspective. Before the arrival of the industrial civilization, Cather praised highly the frontiers'honestness, nobleness and regarded the west frontier as the ideal place of"spiritual return". However, with the development of modern industrial civilization towards the west prairie, the relationship between human beings and the nature began to worsen. The modern civilization continuously invaded human beings'spiritual world, which resulted in the lost of the spiritual home.There are five sections in this thesis. The first chapter mainly introduces the three works and the relative ecofeminist theories. The second chapter will analyze the ecofeminist ideas in the novel O, Pioneers!, and give the conclusion that the west prairie represented by Nebraska prairie where there is no any industrial civilization and the human beings and nature get along together in harmony is the ideal place of"spiritual return". The third chapter will analyze the ecofeminist idea in the novel My Antonia. With the development of the modern industrial civilization, the Nebraska prairie, as the spiritual home, faces challenge. The fourth chapter will analyze the novel A Lost Lady. In this novel, the pioneering era is displaced by modern industrial civilization era, and the pioneer's outstanding qualities also disappeare. The relationship between human beings and nature worsens. The spiritual home also doesn't exist. The fifth chapter is the conclusion of the thesis. Through the interpretation on the novels, only people get along with nature in harmony and dispute the exploitation on nature and women, can people deal with the relationship with nature. The three novels, separately represented three levels of pioneering eras, give explanatory notes on ecofeminist idea. Willa Cather praised nature and women, and showed here disgust for the domination on women and nature. And the novels also aptly described the process of Willa Cather's"spiritual return"from idealness to disillusion.