An Eco-feministic Approach To Tess Of The D'Urbervilles

Tomas Hardy is a great realistic writer in British literature history. Hardy's "novels of Character and Environment" are famous all over the world and his masterpiece Tess of the D'Urbervilles has an enduring position in literature history. In his works, nature and women are his major concerns from which he gets numerous inspirations to create literary works. In his opinion, nature and women are closely linked, nature is the home where women live, meanwhile women are the symbols who stand for nature, so nature and women are einheitlich in experience and position and their fates are complementary. Eco-feminism theory originates from the ecological movement and the feminist movement, which believes that there is a great affinity between nature and women, considers that the relationship is close between male's domination to women and human's domination to nature and this relationship represents the patriarchal world view. Therefore Eco-feminist appeals to reconstruct the human society in accordance with the principles of ecology and feminism, where the nature can aviod being exploited and women can get complete liberation.By combining Hardy's Ecological Feminism with Eco-feminism theory, this paper firstly analyzes Hardy'natural feminism and the influence it exerts in Hardy's creating Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Secondly, the paper interprets Tess's tragic fate from natural ecology--- the ecology of man and nature. Tess and the nature not only have a close relationship but also have the same tragic fates. Then this paper interprets Tess's tragic fate from social ecology---the ecology of man and society. It proves that Tess'tragedy is determined by the contemporary politics,economy,culture and moral values in her time as well as by the society Hardy lives in. Then this thesis takes peep at the rise of Tess's feminist consciousness from Hardy's view of Eco-feminism. Tess not only displays her deviant pagan temperament but also challenges the traditional concept of virginity. Finally this thesis explores the realistic enlightenment of Hardy's Eco-feminism research. It warns human to form Ecological Feminism of the gender harmony and appeals to establish a society in which the harmonious and equal relationships exist between genders,species,the mankind and nature, as well as to establish a colorful world which contains cultural diversity and biological diversity.