An Ecofeminist Reading Of The Stone Diaries

Carol Shields is one of the most celebrated Canadian authors and haspublished ten novels and three collections of short stories. She is best known for hernovel The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for theBooker Prize. As a female writer, Carol Shields’s works focus mainly on womenissues including the identification of women, the relationship between women andmen as well as the close connection between women and nature and The StoneDiaries is no exception. It tells a story about a woman named Daisy Goodwill Flettwhose life covers a period of eight decades from her birth in1905to her death in the1990s. Up to now, reviewers pay their attention mainly to Shields’s works’ theme inCanada and America. But the comments on this novel in China are rare, especially inlight of the ecofeminism theory.Shields has been concerned with the relationships between men and women,women and nature. Her combination of environmental problems with women issues isclearly reflected in her novel The Stone Diaries which will be reinterpreted throughthe lens of ecofeminism in the thesis. Ecofeminism criticizes that men are superior toboth women and men and advocates mutual love and care for each other amonghuman beings. The purpose of this thesis is to draw on ecofeminist theory to exploreCarol Shields’s remarkable insights into feminism and ecology in The Stone Diaries.On the one hand, she criticizes the patriarchal oppression towards both women andnature and condemns the domination-subordination relation between men and women;on the other hand, she explores women’s closeness with nature, pursuit ofindependence and freedom and hope for an ideal world in which men and women,human beings and nature live in harmony. The thesis aims to highlight the ecofeministelements in The Stone Diaries through a detailed textual analysis. The thesis consistsof three chapters with one introduction and a conclusion. The introduction offers abrief introduction of ecofeminism theory and the ecofeminist elements represented inThe Stone Diaries. Chapter One explores the close relationship between women andnature. The second chapter is devoted to exposing patriarchal domination over women and nature that has been deteriorated due to human beings’ damage. Chapter Threediscusses the fusion of women, men and nature, which further reveals Carol Shields’secofeminist awareness and her desire for a harmonious society. The conclusionsummarizes the perspectives discussed in the above three chapters of the thesis.Through the analysis and reinterpretation of the novel, we should realize howessential and urgent it is to build up a harmonious world. Meanwhile, this thesis,through the application of ecofeminism into the analysis of one relatively new novelsuch as The Stone Diaries, attempts to provide inspiration to other scholars to employecofeminism to analyze other relatively new novels.