An Ecofeminist Study On Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time

Hemingway is famous for his masterpieces as well as his legendary life experiences. But to some degree he is misunderstood for so-called patriarchy attitude toward women and nature. This dissertation will trace back to his earliest collection of short stories, In Our Time, to prove that Hemingway is in fact full of ecofeminist sensibility, which is part of guidance in his later works too. This thesis consists of five chapters altogether:Chapter I makes a brief introduction of some important studies on Hemingway and his works, and comments on In Our Times—the cornerstone of Hemingway's success in literature in detail.Chapter II traces back to the formation of Hemingway's ecofeminist awareness. It analyzes how Hemingway is influenced by the Hemingway women including Grace Hall Hemingway, his mother; Gertrude Stein, his literary mentor; his first love Agnes Hannah von Kurowsky and his four wives in his life, and then depicts his closeness to nature.Chapter III is the text analysis in terms of ecofeminism. This chapter categorizes the stories in In Our Time into four groups, that is, Nick Adams'stories, the lovers' and the couples'stories, the war story and the horse racing story, it aims to make textual analysis on each of the story. In fact, there is an overlap between some of them. For example, Doctor and Doctor's Wife and The Three-Day Blow also involve the relationship between the couple and lovers respectively, but this thesis chooses to classify them into Nick Adams'stories in order to make a complete depiction of Nick Adam who is Hemingway's semi-biographical character.Chapter IV is the theme analysis and aims to interpret Hemingway's unremitting ecofeminist pursuit of integrity in In Our Time, including his refusal of nature as "the other" and the marginalization of women. This chapter conveys Hemingway's idea of the ideal relationship between the two genders, and between the human and nature. Through marriage and nature, one could obtain his personal integrity. Chapter IV is devoted to the analysis of ecofeminism as a balanced outlook, that is, an extensive understanding of ecofeminism. As a balanced way to read the world, ecofeminism refers to not only the relationship between the male, female and nature, but also the unity and diversity between races and classes, and the mutual understanding between generations. It is actually very the way to achieve harmoniousness.Chapter V comes to the conclusion which states the achievements and limitations of this thesis. It emphasizes Hemingway is really a great writer with a ecofeminist perspective.