Ecocriticism and Ecofeminism

Ecocriticism

The term Ecocriticism was coined by William Rueckert in his critical writing " literature and Ecology: An experiment in Ecocriticism" in 1978. It first became as a major movement in 1990s. The word Eco comes from the Greek root word oikos which etymologically means household or earth and logy from logos means logical discourse. 

According to Rueckert, Ecocriticism applies ecology or ecological principles into the study of literature. Lawrance Buell defined Ecocriticism as 

"As a study of the relationship between literature and the environmentalist's ted in a spirit of commitment praxis".

Basically if we know about the Marxist Criticism challenging,  so it might be easy to understand the Ecocriticism. Ecocriticism is relate literature to the natural environment of the world.  Although ecocriticism has a strong Ethical aspects which comes up with the reading of literature. 

It should ideally inspire political activism and connects with the real change. Through the various ways literature treats the subject of nature and it takes interdisciplinary point of view. 

The fundamental implications of Ecocriticism is that we have to investigate the concepts of nature itself. Whereas societies have a different mode to view the nature and frequently with their own hierarchies and codes of conducts as nature rather than as artificial and man-made.

What Is Ecocriticism?

Eco-criticism is a study of culture and cultural products (art works, writings, scientific theories, etc.) that is in some way connected with the human relationship to the natural world. Eco-criticism is also a response to needs, problems, or crises, depending on one's perception of urgency. First, eco-criticism is a response to the need for humanistic understanding of our relationships with the natural world in an age of environmental destruction. 

In large part, environmental crises are a result of humanity's disconnection from the natural world, brought about not only by increasing technology but also by particularization; that is, a mentality of specialisation that fails to recognize the interconnectedness of all things. In terms of the academy, eco-criticism is thus a response to scholarly specialisation that has gone out of control; eco-criticism seeks to reattach scholars to each other and scholarship to the real concerns of the world.

Inherently, then, eco-criticism is interdisciplinary. In order to understand the connectedness of all things-including the life of the mind and the life of the earth-one must reconnect the disciplines that have become sundered through over specialization. Inherent in the idea of interdisciplinarity is the holistic ideal. Therefore, ecocriticism must remain "a big tent" and comprehensiveness of perspectives must be encouraged and honoured. 

All eco-critical efforts are pieces of a comprehensive continuum. Eco-critical approaches, thus, can be theoretical, historical, pedagogical, analytical, psychological, rhetorical, and on and on, including combinations of the above.

Examples:-

William Wordsworth - "I wondered Lonely as a cloud"

Wordsworth was nature lover poet and he had been mentioned nature as a powerful element. So in his poem the ecological aspects concern to nature as 

Arundhati Roy:- "The God  of small Things"

In this novel Arundhati Roy uses the literature to address nature. The God of small Things in which the aspects of Ecocriticism is come up with the some characters of her novel. Estha, Rahe's uncle etc gives the little perspective to view the environment as how old the Earth is. When this character taken through the Historical perspective then it view as as the Earth Woman.

The Idea of ecocriticism appeared owing to natural crises such as

Pollution 

Global Warming

Overpopulation

Waste Disposal (+Nuclear)

Climate Change

Deforestation

Ozone Layer Depletion

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where literature scholars analyse the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature.

Ecocriticism is the youngest of the revisionist movements that have influenced the humanities over the past few decades. It was only in the 1990s that it began to gain momentum, first in the US and in the UK, as more and more literary scholars began to ask what their field has to contribute to our understanding of the unfolding environmental crisis.

What is this new theory about?  Ecocriticism makes us re-evaluate every other kind of criticism.  Primarily, it contests theories of language (more on that later) and puts a whole new perspective on how to approach literary works.

  

One of the recognised pioneers of ecocriticism, Cheryll Glotfelty, states that “Simply defined, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment”.

Ecocriticism, as it now exists in the USA, takes its literary bearings from the transcendentalist 19th century writers whose works celebrate nature, the life force, and the wilderness such as Ralph Waldo EMERSON, Margaret FULLER, and Henry David THOREAU.

Ecofeminism 

        

Throughout many cultures, women have historically held the role of primary food, fuel and water gatherer for their families and communities. Because of this, also had a major interest to prevent or undo the effects of deforestation, desertification and water pollution.

Ecofeminism is based on the theory that the oppression of women and the In 1974, a group of about thirty women in the Himalayas of Northern India united to save more than 10,000 square miles of forest watershed. The ecofeminist movement gained momentum in the U.S. Ynestra King and activist Grace Paley were among the women who organized the “Women and Life on Earth” conference at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1980. 

Now known as the Chipko Movement, Hindi for “to cling,” the name reflected the protesters’ practice of throwing their arms around the trunks of trees marked for chopping and refusing to move. An Ecofeminism movement in Kenya also embraced the importance of trees. The group of women addressed the lack of local water, the effects of soil erosion and the rising challenges.

The same time that the Green Belt Movement was taking off, the Love Canal disaster in upstate New York was gaining attention. In ecofeminist literature, ecofeminism is often described as the belief that environmentalism and feminism are intrinsically connected. Another thing is that discrimination and oppression based on gender, race and class are directly related to the exploitation and destruction of the environment.

Some ecofeminist writers believe such oppression is patriarchal while others choose to imply that it is. The link being made between women and nature is evident. But while some ecofeminists view the link between woman and nature as empowering, others believe it’s imposed.

Generally assert that women are closer to nature because of their positions as mothers or homemakers. As a result, they conclude that because women take care of their families and homes, they’ll be more aware of environmental issues than men.

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