The Ecological Feminism In Willa Cather's Early Pioneering Novels

Literature of pioneers in western America is a glory in American literature, and is a spectacular sight in American national literature history. Willa Cather was a symbol as describing the frontier life of pioneers in western America. She was a famous female writer in late 19th and early 20th centuries in America, mentioned with literature masters such as Henry James, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and F.Scott Fitzgerald in the same breath, belonging to the same great era. Since 1980s, academia in China has attached more and more importance to Cather's opus. A series of novels set mainly in Nebraska played an important role in her creations. Considering three of the series, Oh,Pioneers!, Song of the Lark and My Antonia, as a system, this paper is intended to explore Cather's eco-feminism expressed in the series. Cather tried to break the binary antinomy in traditional thinking in western patriarchal society and shaped three fortitude and positive female pioneers. They all had mother earth's feelings and strength, and kept harmonious relationships with earth and nature, and exhibited brilliance of humanity. Cather aimed at probing ideality between two sexes and between human and nature and between human and society, which still has positive guiding meaning to contemporary society.In the first chapter, as the author's view of the three works, Cather established some sort of imaginary author's authority spread in the text. As a woman, Cather praised highly the great pioneering spirit of these three women. Through the harmonious coexistence between women and the nature, she deconstructed western human centrism and dualism, and conveyed the hope of establishing ideal interdependence and mutual integration between genders, between human and the nature, and between human and society. In Chapter II, the extraordinary pioneering world the author constructed is addressed. In material and spiritual fields, the three female heroine rewrote the women's "home angels" role, they were typical successful brave, perseverant, and positive pioneering female and their female experience, from "Lost" (Alexandra) to "Exploring" (Xiya), and finally "Established" (Antonia), reflected the development process of the author's creative concept. In Chapter III, from the contrast of male order predominated in the dualism of rationality and nature with female pursuit of harmony with ecology, and from the comparison between male and female views of ecology, the author's ideal ecological realm is explored. Finally, it is concluded from Cather's creation practice that the pioneering world in the author's mind was good, but some people had to leave the land to seek for opportunities of greater development and most turn to frustration, which reflected the author's ideals and considering on the plight of human existence.