A Study Of N. Gordimer's Ecofeminist Thoughts In The Pickup

Nadine Gordimer(1923-2014),South Africa's first Nobel Prize-winning writer,has a strong sense of social responsibility.During her nearly 70-year writing career,she has been fighting against the apartheid and racial discrimination in South Africa with keen insight and sharp writing style.Gordimer cleverly grasps the main problems of the society and uses highly infectious words to provoke readers' thoughts.The Pickup by Gordimer,unlike her earlier radical anti-racist works,focuses more on the mysterious Arabic world other than South Africa.This thesis applies ecofeminist theory to analyze the varied choices made by the female protagonist Julie and her husband Abdu and finds that although Abdu suffers from racial discrimination and class discrimination in South Africa,he obviously accepts hierarchical ideas hence his submissiveness to racial and class discriminations.Therefore,even though he has suffered a lot from racial and class discriminations,he tries to stay at European or American countries at any cost even as an illegal worker.Abdu,who accepts the logic of hierarchy,also discriminates against women and nature.As a white middle-class woman,Julie marries Abdu,a poor illegal worker from the Arabic world,which displays her rejection of racial discrimination and class discrimination.More importantly,she follows her husband to the Arabic country and helps women there who suffer from serious gender discrimination.She is attracted by the desert and chooses to stay there after her husband migrates to the United States.These show her rejection of gender discrimination and nature discrimination.Through the different choices made by Abdu and Julie,Gordimer shows a profound anti-hierarchical consciousness.It is should be noted that in this novel,Julie respects other cultures.In South Africa,she respects the different religious beliefs and sexual orientations of “The Table” from her own.After she and her husband come to the Arabic world,she not only abides by various local cultures and customs consciously but also makes great efforts to learn the local language.Through Julie's choices and life experience,Gordimer shows her strong appeal for cultural diversity.This paper argues that Gordimer's deconstruction of hierarchical consciousness and her advocation for cultural diversity fully display her ecofeminist ideas.