| Margaret Atwood is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Canadianliterature. And as an expert in poetry, novels, short stories and literary reviews, she enjoysworld-wide popularity for her glorious contribution to English literature and is honored as"the queen of Canadian literature". Since Atwood came to maturity at a time when issuesof Canadian cultural identity and the role of women were drastically changing, survival isthe common theme throughout all her literary creations and the feminist theme that hasreoccurred in Margaret Atwood's works have also been widely discussed in many previousstudies.Eco-feminist theory is one branch of the postmodern feminist theory, which,nevertheless, has seldom been applied by scholars to analyze Margaret Atwood's novels. Itmay result from their neglect of the close relationship between women and nature, and thelack of combination of Ecology and Feminism. In light of the Eco-feminist theory thatthere is a link between women and nature who face the same oppressed situation, thispaper selects three of Margaret Atwood's well-known novels The Edible Woman,Surfacing, and The Handmaid's Tales, applying the research method of comparison in aneffort to explore the road taken by women and nature from the victim to the survivor. Itaims to provide a new perspective for the studies on Margaret Atwood and attract thepublic attention on environmental protection and feminist issues. This thesis consists offour parts. The first part gives a brief introduction to Margaret Atwood and her works witha brief literature review. Then it goes into a thematic exploration of thisthesis—Eco-feminism. The second part consists of specific analysis of the oppressedsituation of the females and nature and their links between each other in the three novels.And in part three, it tries to find out how to overcome the dualistic dynamic on the road tosurvival. The final part draws the conclusion that there should be harmonious relationshipbetween the female and the male, human civilization and nature. |
