An Eco-feminist Interpretation Of The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx And Crake And The Year Of The Flood By Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood (1939 -) known as the"Queen of Canadian Literature", has got international reputation, who has won more than 10 awards and 12 hornory degrees. She had published more than 40 works including poetry, literary criticism, short stories, children's literature and novels. She has won numerous literary works of various literary awards such as Governor General's and Federal Literature Prize and so on, which has aroused the concern of the world's literary critics, and also gained a wide range of love and praise of the readers. Atwood was born in Ottawa, Canada, and educated in University of Toronto and Harvard University. She has been the president of Writers Association of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and the president in Canada Center (English Region) of the International P. E. N. from 1984 to 1985.As a female writer, Margaret Atwood has got very strong feminist consciousness, who has been concerned about the fate and survival status of women in the male-dominated world; meanwhile, she has paid much attention to the natural world which has been dominated and almost been destroyed by human beings. Especially in her works, she insists on caring about ecology and women on one hand; on the other hand, she expresses deep concern about the future of mankind. As a writer with strong social responsibity, Atwood expresses her worry and condemn for mankind's destruction on nature, and her wish for a harmony life between human beings and nature from the perspective of eco-feminism.This thesis tends to interpret Atwood's three novels The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood from the eco-feminism perspective. It is divided into four chapters: Chapter One is the introduction of Margaret Atwood and her ecological awareness, and the brief contents of these three novels, as well as foreign and domestic research on Atwood and her works. Chapter Two is the theoretical frameworks, which introduces eco-feminism along with deep ecology and environmental justice. Chapter Three is the main interpreting part of this thesis, which at first describes the current environmental situation, then applying the theory of eco-feminism interpret nature's deprived position and women's victimized position in the patriarchal world, afterwards reveals the resistance of women and nature, and at last expresses the final aim of women and nature, that is, to achieve the harmony between human and nature, men and women, and people's inner harmony in each novel. Chapter Four is the conclusion for the above analysis and interpretation.