生態烏托邦的崩解:由生態女性批評的角度檢視童妮˙摩里森的《樂園》

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩. 士. 論. 文. Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 生態烏托邦的崩解: 由生態女性批評的角度檢視童妮˙摩里森的《樂園》 An Ecotopia Disrupted: An Ecofeminist Approach to Toni Morrison’s Paradise. 指導教授: 何文敬教授 Advisor: Dr. Wen-ching Ho 研究生: 陳韋伶 Advisee: Wei-ling Chen 中華民國一百零四年六月 June 2015.

(2) i. 摘要本文旨在運用生態女性主義的角度探討童妮˙摩里森的《樂園》。由於對自然的宰制與對性別、種族與社群的壓迫具有高度相關性，在這樣宰制的邏輯中，文化上較低等的實體一直以來都被視為是某種可被控制、宰制和殖民的客體。為了除去這種父權中心的意識型態，筆者認為人類應該學習與大自然彼此和諧地相處，並在此生態系統中學習互相關愛與互相尊重。大致上，本論文主體可分為五個部份，分別是引言、正文與結論。在正文中，筆者試圖探討性別、種族和社群與自然之間的關係，分三章討論。第一章闡明《樂園》裡自然與性別的相互關係。筆者首先將露比鎮與女修道院的自然環境做比較，透過這兩處自然環境的異同與動物的暗喻，筆者認為自然與女性所受到的壓迫現象頗有相似之處。接著，筆者試圖探討在父權體制下，不同種族與階級的女性在《樂園》中所經驗到的性別壓迫現象。第二章主要著重在殖民的邏輯的議題上，筆者於此章除了探討殖民的邏輯也檢視了激進的排他性對種族延續所造成的負面效果。筆者在此章也檢視了身分認同的衝突問題，特別是在異族混血和世代衝突等問題上。第三章旨在檢視自然與生態烏托邦的關係。本章首先探討人類對生態烏托邦的嚮往與追尋，並討論《樂園》中對生態烏托邦的追尋，筆者也探討生態系統中將自然視為孕育萬物的母親，但筆者認為若將自然視為孕育萬物的母親，人類將會合理化對大自然恣意的剝削與宰制。最後，筆者檢視了生態社群中的集體文化認同現象。. 關鍵詞:童妮˙摩里森，《樂園》，生態女性主義，宰制的邏輯，父權中心，性別，種族，社群，醫治.

(3) ii. Abstract This thesis attempts to apply an ecofeminist approach to Toni Morrison’s Paradise, for the suppression upon nature is correlated with the suppression of gender, race and community. Under the logic of domination, the culturally inferior entities have long been regarded as “objects” that can be controlled, dominated, and colonized. In order to de-center the patriarchal ideology, one should learn to live in harmony with each other based on mutual love and respect in the ecosystem. As a whole, this thesis is composed of five parts—an Introduction, three chapters constituting the bulk of the thesis, and a Conclusion. Chapter One offers insight into the interrelations of nature and gender in Paradise. This chapter first offers a comparison of the natural environment between Ruby and the Convent. Through the representation of the natural environment and the animal metaphor, this chapter demonstrates that women and nature are both dominated by the patriarchy ideology. This chapter also attempts to investigate the sexual oppression as experienced by women with different race and class under the patriarchal system. Mainly paying attention to the problems of the logic of colonization, Chapter Two discusses the logic of colonization and examines the ways radical exclusion in the effect of disallowal. This chapter also investigates the problem of identity conflict in miscegenation and the conflict between generations. Scrutinizing the relation between nature and ecotopia, Chapter Three first investigates the search for ecotopia, and then discusses whether we should regard the ecosystem as a nurturing mother. After that, this chapter examines the collective and cultural identity of eco-community.. Keywords: Toni Morrison, Paradise, Ecofeminism, logic of domination, patriarchy, gender, race, community, healing.

(4) iii. Acknowledgements I’m very grateful to many people that have helped me in writing my Master thesis. First I would like to acknowledge the support of the Department of English at National Taiwan Normal University, in particular, Dr. Wen-ching Ho for guiding me in the process of writing my thesis. I would say, I am very lucky to have Dr. Ho as my advisor. For me, Dr. Ho is like Moses who leads me out of the painful writing process. Whenever I am stuck in my thesis, he is the light that brightens the gloomy corner of my heart. Besides, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. I-ping Liang for providing the most useful and solid suggestions in my thesis. Her comments on the original proposal prove instrumental in shaping a more concrete direction of my thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Robin Chen-Hsing Tsai. His work in ecocriticism and ecofeminism serve as a source of inspiration for this thesis. Their interest and support have made the groundwork for this thesis possible. Many thanks are also due to my family and my friends for their assistance and patience. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to those who have provided the educational and emotional support in the past four years..

(5) iv. Table of Contents Abstract in Chinese ............................................................................................................. i Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. iii Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 I.. An Introduction to Ecofeminism ................................................................................ 7. II.. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism ................................................................................... 11. III. An Ecofeminist Reading of Paradise ......................................................................... 13 Chapter One The Interconnection between Women and Nature in Paradise ............. 17 1.1 The Natural Environment of Ruby and the Convent .................................................... 17 1.1.1 The Animal Metaphor ................................................................................................ 21 1.2 The Similar Fate the Female Suffered under the Patriarchal Society ........................... 24 1.3 The Desire for Healing.................................................................................................. 30 1.3.1 The Healing Meal: Energized by Nature as the Resource of Food ......................... 32 1.3.2 The Drawing on the Ground ................................................................................... 33 Chapter Two Dualism: The Logic of Colonization in Paradise..................................... 37 2.1 The Logic of Colonization ............................................................................................ 39 2.1.1 Naturalizing the Natives ......................................................................................... 42 2.1.2 The Effect of Denial ................................................................................................ 43 2.2 Radical Exclusion ......................................................................................................... 45 2.2.1 The Effect of Disallowal: A Place for Home .......................................................... 46 2.3 The Identity Conflict: Miscegenation ........................................................................... 49 2.3.1. Identity Conflict between the Old and the Young ................................................... 51. 2.4 Reclaiming Identity....................................................................................................... 53 Chapter Three The Interconnectedness of Nature and Ecotopia in Paradise ............. 57 3.1 In Search of Ecotopia .................................................................................................... 60 3.1.1 The Pursuit of Ecotopia in Paradise ....................................................................... 62 3.2 Ecosystem Community as a Nurturing Mother ............................................................ 65 3.2.1 Religion as Nurturing Power in Paradise ............................................................... 67 3.3 Collective and Cultural Identity of the Eco-community ............................................... 73 3.3.1 The Significance of Naming in Paradise................................................................ 75 3.3.2 Healing from the Eco-community in Paradise ....................................................... 77 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 81 Works Cited ....................................................................................................................... 84.

(6) Chen 1. Introduction As a novelist, editor, and professor, Toni Morrison is famous for her distinctive characterization, poetic language, and complex themes in her novels. Morrison’s literary works epitomize the black society, in which issues of race, class, culture, and gender are intertwined. She mixes fantasy with legendary myths and created her stories with profound meanings and aestheticism. With the aid of African and African American myth, folklores, written and oral histories, she tends to reveal the unspeakable part of the black community and attempts to foreground meaningful issues which have been ignored or forgotten for centuries. Her works subvert some of the arbitrary and rooted belief. It is as if she has been trying to lift the dark curtain behind the scene and give us a chance to realize the issues of inequality in gender, race, and culture. She leads us to reconceptualize or “re-memory” (to quote the word she has coined in Beloved) the history we have taken for granted for so long and guides us to reflect upon the false assumptions asserted by the patriarchal society. In “The Novels of Toni Morrison: ‘Wild Wilderness Where There Was None,’” Karla Armbruster and Kathleen R. Wallace have noticed that “in representing the subjugated standpoint of African Americans, Morrison is notable for exploring how the natural world has been used as an instrument of oppression but has ultimately provided a source of sustenance and comfort” (Armbruster and Wallace 213). In a manner, Morrison skillfully engages with the natural environment in Paradise. Paradise, a complex but beautiful masterpiece, blends some crafted techniques from Toni Morrison’s early works such as The Bluest Eye (1970) and Sula (1973), while relating her major concern of ethics, as shown in Beloved (1987). As the finale of Morrison’s trilogy, Paradise foregrounds the issue of excessiveness in religious belief, as Ron David in Toni Morrison Explained: A Reader’s Road Map to the Novels (2000) claimed that “Beloved is about excessive love of one’s children, Jazz is about.

(7) Chen 2. romantic love taken to excess, and Paradise is about love of God taken to excess” (David 179). It is the excess of religious love that drives the men to take on the extreme act of violence in the Convent. Paradise is narrated in flashbacks, with shifting and multiple narratives, in a sense, it presents a “patchwork” in which all the characters’ lives are intertwined and entangled with each other. Beginning with a communal violence, the story presents the male’s barbarous and remorseless action in murdering the Convent women. In Paradise, the male characters seem to maintain the biased viewpoints by demonizing the women who are free, independent and autonomous. Their false projection upon women is related to the biased ideology implemented in the Western civilization. As Carolyn Merchant has claimed in The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1989), women are often demonized by men and “woman was both virgin and witch: the Renaissance courtly lover placed her on a pedestal. . . .The witch, symbol of the violence of nature, raised storms, caused illness, destroyed crops, obstructed generation, and killed infants. Disorderly woman, like chaotic nature, needed to be controlled” (Merchant 127). For example, in Paradise, Consolata, one of the Convent women, becomes a scapegoat as she is murdered by a group of black men from the neighboring town called Ruby because of the black men’s arrogance and vanity. In short, Paradise demonstrates the black women’s confrontation with patriarchal society, their search for a natural and harmonious way of life, and their eventual self-realization by subverting anthropocentrism and patriarchy. On all accounts, Paradise also foregrounds the racial issues, for a great number of blacks, freed from slavery, tend to escape from the hostile world and build an idealized all-black town named Ruby. The black males attempt to build up an all-black community by mastering the land and colonizing the natural environment. The founding fathers started their journey from Mississippi to Louisiana, and then to.

(8) Chen 3. Oklahoma. According to Channette Romero, the Migration Movement is similar to the Exodus in the Bible, since “newly freed African Americans migrated in large numbers to Kansas, and later Oklahoma, because of the failures of Reconstruction to bring full equality, political rights, and safety to African Americans” (Romero 421). Migrating to the west signifies that the black people hope to gain freedom and search for a place for shelter. For the African Americans, they are longing for a paradise with safety and equality. As Jill Matus argues in Toni Morrison (1988), “In Paradise Morrison envisions the survival of one of those Oklahoma black towns where paradise is ownership and freedom from fear, harassment and rejection” (Matus 155). Influenced by the trauma of slavery and the Disallowing effect, the black men are designated to build an all-black town that can provide them a sense of safety and belonging—the paradise they have in mind. However, the isolated black community in Paradise is what Morrison comes to criticize in her novel, as Evelyn E. Sholey declares in her review, Paradise is “a story about US versus Them” (Sholey 15). The problem of exclusivity in the community shows “the inability to remember an event, to narrate or to place it in time is itself a symptom of the unspeakability of the occurrence. The historical trauma of Ruby’s ancestors has produced a fixation on memorialisation and a need to repeat the conditions of their rejection and the town’s founding” (Matus 161). In her depiction of Ruby, Morrison portrays the separateness and superiority in the African American community within the context of American history. It is clear that the black men duplicate the same domineering system from the white and use it to oppress women and nature. Having been suppressed by the patriarchal society for centuries under the thought of binary opposition, women and nature have long been regarded as “objects” that can be controlled, dominated, and colonized. As Sueellen Campbell has noticed,.

(9) Chen 4. “we can’t do anything without causing lots of side effects because everything is connected, nothing is isolated” (Campbell 132). Since we are part of nature, all the human actions would definitely “provoke unexpected reactions” to nature (Campbell 130). Therefore, in contemporary nature writing, as Scott Slovic has suggested, we should take note of one of the crucial aspects by acknowledging “how this literature translates into concrete changes in readers’ attitudes toward the environment, and into more environmentally sound behavior” (Slovic 364). So, we need to investigate the relationships “between the human mind and the natural world—‘correspondence’ and ‘otherness’—which the more recent writers have continued to investigate” (Slovic 367). The problem in the contemporary world is that, we human beings tend to regard ourselves as the center of the world. And we seem to be fogged by the ideas of anthropocentrism, since such fallible concept of anthrocentrism has been built in the human mind. If we neglect these issues and continue to deprive nature of its resources, we may face with the most destructive impact from the environment. Therefore, we should think how to live in harmony with nature, rather than keep thinking on how to make it as our property and take great advantage of it. Also, we should not take nature for granted, nor should we regard nature as our own property, for this concept would cloud our visions of the world. According to William Howarth, “ecology leads us to reorganize what life speaks, communing through encoded streams of information that have direction and purpose, if we learn to translate the messages with fidelity” (Howarth 77). Such readings would help us challenge the socially constructed ideology and give us applicable approach to literature. Hence, the relationship between literature and nature can be explained in an essay called “The Comic Mode,” a chapter from Joseph W. Meeker’s pioneering work The Comedy of Survival (1972). Here, Meeker asserts that literature.

(10) Chen 5. should be examined carefully and honestly to discover its influence upon human behavior and the natural environment—to determine what role, if any, it plays in the welfare and survival of mankind and what insight it offers into human relationships with other species and with the world around us. (Meeker 3-4) While examining the relationship between humans and nature in literature, I realize that the ideology has embedded in the logic of colonization. As Annette Kolodny once put it, “colonization brought with it an inevitable paradox: the success of settlement depended on the ability to master the land, transforming the virgin territories into something else” (Kolodny 174). In other words, human beings, especially men, tend to tame the wild, the dark and mythic nature, for they enjoy the privilege of dominating nature and the female, endowing nature with feminine quality and try to civilize it. In “Development, Ecology, and Women,” Vandana Shiva has pointed out that “the violence to nature as symptomatized by the ecological crisis, and the violence to women, as symptomatized by their subjugation and exploitation, arise from this subjugation of the feminine principle” (Shiva 84). What Shiva suggests is that both nature and women are objectified, which can be used by men unfairly. In “Heroines of Nature: Four Women Respond to the America Landscape,” Vera L. Norwood claimed that “women’s separation from pristine nature can be traced to the belief that woman is to man as nature is to culture” (Norwood 324). In a sense, the dualistic idea of women to nature and man to culture results from the logic of domination under the ideology of patriarchy. In addition, while the patriarchal viewpoints have prevailed in the world for centuries, the view of the domination of nature and women has been regarded as rational and reasonable. While conducting research on this thesis, I discovered that though a tremendous amount of research has been done on Morrison’s Paradise, but very few scholars have.

(11) Chen 6. come to analyze Paradise from the perspective of ecofeminism. Therefore, one problem with the current state of Morrison scholarship is that it often fails to explicate the correlation between the natural environment and the formation of the identity in the racially and sexually stereotyped community. Hence, in order to help fill this gap, this thesis plans to take an Ecofeminist approach to investigate the suppression of women under the patriarchal system in its relations with race, gender, class, and community, since such “androcentrism” is constructed by the dominant culture and society. In order to subvert such biased ideology, I intend to bring readers to reexamine the false fantasy of androcentrism by reflecting upon Karen J. Warren’s term, “the logic of domination.” In other words, what motivates me to work on this thesis is my concern with the “logic of domination” of women and nature under such a patriarchal ideology prevailing in the black community, the concern of the “logic of domination” with the interracial issues with nature, and the concern of the interconnection of nature and ecotopia. The aim in this thesis is to reveal the complication and domination of patriarchal society. Also, I shall scrutinize the problems of the racial dispute in the text, and identify the false assumptions in the black community. In addition, I shall elucidate some of the theoretical assumptions about the biased black community and the interconnection of nature and ecotopia. And I shall argue that it is possible to build a paradise for human beings if we respect each other and live in an equal and harmonious way with nature. I.. An Introduction to Ecofeminism. The term “Ecofeminism” is coined by a French feminist scholar named Francoise d’Eaubonne in a book called Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). She called upon the females to participate in saving the planet in which we live, as she thought women have the potential to solve the ecological crisis the whole world has been.

(12) Chen 7. faced within the modern times. Ecofeminism links the repression and oppression of women with that of nature. In general, Ecofeminism is regarded as the third-wave feminist movement. Aside from taking the issues of gender, race, and class into consideration, Ecofeminists also pay great attention to maintaining an eco-friendly system. They regard human beings as part of the organism in the ecosystem. And each individual should be conscious of the complicated issues in the natural environment. In other words, the third-wave feminist movement has shifted its focus from self-identity, gender, and social structure to investigate the relation between human beings and nature. One of the main reasons in the combination of eco-criticism and feminism in Ecofeminism is that in the progression of western civilization, women and nature often serve as an analogy to each other. Both women and nature are the targets that could be controlled, exploited, and occupied under the patriarchal system. Thus, Ecofeminists attempt to compare the oppression of women to the suppression of nature. Karen J. Warren in Ecofeminism (1997) points out that the domination of nature and the domination of women are operated by the same ideological system. It is the patriarchal system and logocentrism that the Ecofeminists intend to subvert. Ecofeminism investigates the ideology of the relation in the double domination in both women and nature and attempts to overthrow all the domineering ideas and pursue the inter-connectedness between the human race and nature. The first step to debase such domineering concept is to demolish the rigid binary opposition. Ecofeminists also emphasize the appreciation of diversity and individual differences. They foreground the “mutuality” among the ecosystem rather than the dominating relation proposed by the Enlightenment. Although there are some diverse perspectives about Ecofeminism, the main task of Ecofeminism is to focus on preventing from the patriarchal domination and preserving the ecological environment. Ecofeminism.

(13) Chen 8. insists that human beings and nature are inter-connected and interdependent. Such mutually connected relation cannot be explained by the perspective of anthropocentricism, for the anthropocentric concept endows the privilege to human beings to treat the environment at will. In other words, the idea of anthropocentricism only values the status of nature based on nature’s advantage or benefit toward human beings. This selfish and paradoxical concept had been justified and abused by people for centuries. That is why the environment we live in at present is becoming worse and worse than before—the poisoned food chain, the devastation of the forest and the seas, the horrible effect of the nuclear power plant, the rapid climate change, the polluted soil, the spread of certain disease without cure, and so on. In order to save and protect the degrading environment, Ecofeminists regard the relation between human and nature based on mutual dependence. Ecofeminists also expose how the ideology of patriarchy naturalizes men’s domineering operation towards nature, women and different races. As Carol J. Adams claims in Ecofeminism and the Sacred (1993), Ecofeminism not only challenges gender inequality suffered by women, but also challenges the idea of materialism and imperialism. Such concept of materialism is often covered by making a great profit and bringing significant advantage towards people, thus, the production of commodity often goes beyond human beings’ necessity. Under such an ideology, nature had become a victim that can be conquered without restraint. In addition, the ideologies of industrialization, materialism and imperialism are in part generated by similar patriarchal thoughts. Ecofeminism attempts to eradicate such ideas in the relation between women and nature. On the whole, the main task of Ecofeminism is to abridge all the related domineering system rooted in the existing patriarchal system. Therefore, only by sabotaging the patriarchal perspective can we dissolve any biased and one-sided.

(14) Chen 9. oppressive practices enacted by the domineering concept. And this is how Ecofeminism differs from the idea in Deep Ecology. In effect, while Deep Ecologists were engaged in the preservation of the ecological system, they fail to notice the patriarchal ideas in considering the original cause of ecological crises. Some of the scholars in Deep Ecology still maintain the innate patriarchal ideology, for they prefer to use the term “rape” to describe the devastation of the natural environment. Or, they tend to use “virgin ground” to describe the forest or lands which have not been invaded or colonized by human beings. In a sense, these metaphors show strong dominating influence of patriarchal power. Besides, the scholars of Deep Ecology often ignore the influence of imperialism, for it had caused the stringent devastation towards nature. Such aggressive invasion prompted by imperialism is often challenged and rebuked by Ecofeminism. And the deterioration of environment also caused serious impacts on female fertility. Ecofeminism did not emphasize the differences between male and female; instead, it encourages the partnership between male and female. However, there are other scholars who emphasize the feminine quality of nature and tend to link women with nature, which had caused criticism by scholars. The controversial issues not only show in theological spirituality but also reveal in the diverse opinions on the questions of women and nature. For example, one of the schools of the Ecofeminist scholars regards “nature” as “Mother Earth.” They contemplate nature as merciful mother who creates, cultivates, and cares for all the creatures. The scholars with such perspective include Carolyn Merchant, Elizabeth Dodson Gray, and Rosemary Radford Ruether. In The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1989), Merchant has pointed out that nature is regarded as the nourishing mother before the Age of Enlightenment—the thought of living organism. Thus, the action of destroying nature.

(15) Chen 10. is like murdering one’s own mother. So, people were not willing to destroy nature then. Later on, when it comes to the Age of Reason, scientists had proved that the earth was not a living organism; hence, people began to devastate the planet at will (Merchant 3). Here, Merchant seems to hint that the theory of “Mother Earth” can prevent people from damaging nature. And in Green Paradise Lost (1979), Elizabeth Dodson Gray once claims nature as mother, and she takes the perspective of psychology to analyze the male’s psychological motive upon suppressing women and destroying nature. This is because the male may try to find a path to decamp from the mother on the process of developing his identity. The advancement of technology gives men a chance to depart from nature/mother and become an intellectual identity. Gray further explained that the male’s Oedipus complex may have great influence on their relation with women. This is why men need to conquer women and dominate the feminine nature. Aside from these famous scholars, an Australian ecofeminist activist has also exerted immeasurable influence upon the development of Ecofeminism. Val Plumwood in Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1993) claims that the relation between human beings and nature needs to be rethought, for culture has been used as an instrument to “naturalize domination in both human and non-human spheres” (Plumwood 6). Thus, such internalized ideology had triggered the operation of patriarchy and cause the domination on women and nature. Although each ecofeminist scholar maintains diverse opinions on the analogy of nature and women, they still consent with each other in pursuit of solving the unjust domination on women and nature. Many scholars in recent years have attempted to rethink the relation between women and nature thorough different perspectives and religions to draw the connection between women and nature, such as Buddism, Hinduism, goddesses worship and so on. In this way, we may say that Ecofeminism.

(16) Chen 11. still continues to develop even though there are quite a few controversial issues in this theory. In a sense this theory is still in progress. Thus, we can remain positive towards the future development of Ecofeminism. II. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism In defining Ecofeminist literary criticism, one cannot but notice the two prestigious scholars, Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva who wrote Ecofeminism (1993) together. The former is a social scientist, from the feminist movement, and the latter is a theoretical physicist, from the ecology movement. As Carol J. Adams has suggested in Ecofeminism and the Sacred (1993), ecofeminism has been useful in discussing “the interrelationship of social domination and the domination of the rest of nature,” and the term, eco-feminism, refers to the studies of the “twin dominations of women” and “the oppression of the rest of nature” (Adams 1). Ecofeminists argue that the oppression upon women and nature is based on the same logic of domination and should be highlighted while investigating such problems in literature. In addition, the domineering metaphors by patriarchal ideology, as Adams suggested, rationalize the idea in feminizing nature and naturalizing women at the same time. While scrutinizing the interconnection of the domination upon nature and the society, Ecofeminists have dedicated themselves to subverting such internalized patriarchal dominance over women and nature. Actually, the problematic relationships between women and men, between human beings and nature are, in a sense, closely related with one another. In Ecofeminism (1993) Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva have argued that “nature is subordinated to man; woman to man; consumption to production, and the local to global” (Mies and Shiva, 5). The problem in the modern world is that “in the resultant struggle one part will eventually survive by subordinating and appropriating the ‘other’” (Mies and Shiva, 5). But can we find a new way to break away from.

(17) Chen 12. “appropriating the other?” A possible answer is a new way in examining the contemporary world; that is, an ecofeminist perspective, for it “propounds the need for a new cosmology and a new anthropology which recognizes that life in nature is maintained by means of co-operation, and mutual care and love” (Mies and Shiva 6). As Mies and Shiva have noticed, the patriarchal system is developed and cultivated through “the colonization of women, of ‘foreign’ peoples and their lands; and of nature, which it is gradually destroying” (Mies and Shiva 2). While examining the relation of the domination between man and nature, Mies and Shiva reminds us that such oppressive domination between men and women results from the patriarchal ideology. In other words, under the logic of domination, nature and women turn into the “other,” as Ynestra King puts it, it is “something essentially different from the dominant, to be objectified and subordinated. And women, “who are identified with nature, have been similarly objectified and subordinated in patriarchal society” (King 21). In a sense, nature and women become “objectified others,” which can be exploited and dominated at the same time. Mies and Shiva remind us of an important aspect, in which women “find it is difficult to perceive commonality both between their own liberation and the liberation of nature.” What is the main reason behind the dilemma? As Mies and Shiva suggested, “this is because capitalist patriarchy or ‘modern’ civilization is based on cosmology and anthropology that structurally dichotomizes reality, and hierarchically opposes the two parts to each other” (Mies and Shiva 5). According to Mies and Shiva, ecofeminists tend to use metaphors such as “reweaving the world” and “healing the wounds” in interconnecting the world as an organic web. Because women and nature have long been colonized and “‘opened up’ for free exploitation and subordination,” and “transformed into the “objectified others” (Mies and Shiva 7), it is imperative for us to foreground the healing of the wounds upon nature and the whole world..

(18) Chen 13. III. An Ecofeminist in the Reading of Paradise The theory of Ecofeminism, I believe, would shed light on the investigation of the domineering praxis on women and nature in Paradise. To subvert the patriarchal concept, Ecofeminism leads us to interrogate the suppression of women and nature. In this novel, Morrison tends to deal with the intersecting issues of race, gender and the black community in its depiction of the black people’s journey from place to place, and the description of racial discrimination in their interactions with the others: Paradise shows the intraracial prejudice, especially the one-drop rule, between light-skinned blacks and dark-skinned blacks. In Paradise, Morrison “explore[s] the boundaries between the past as an inspirational fantasy and as a site of oppression, denying change, preventing the realization of new opportunities and possibilities, and inhibiting growth” (Peach 169). In terms of the problem of gender, the female characters in the novel tend to be forced to be submissive but, at the same time, eager to find a place to gain their autonomy and voice. In “Heroines of Nature: Four Women Respond to the America Landscape,” Vera L. Norwood notices that Morrison “lays open ways that racist images of blacks as animals are used to justify slavery, rape, and murder” and “expands her critique to show how such domination of slaves is only one reflection of a general lack of respect for all of nature” (“Heroines of Nature: Four Women Respond to the America Landscape” 189). Morrison presents the problems of the patriarchal ideology in the excluded community established by a group of narrow-minded black male characters. Such patriarchal concepts trigger the establishment of the binary opposition between “self” and “other,” which consolidates the male’s false viewpoints towards women and nature. In “Unspeakable Things Unspoken,” Morrison once argued “what is astonishing in the contemporary debate is not the resistance to displacement of works.

(19) Chen 14. or to the expansion of genre within it, but the virulent passion that accompanies this resistance and, more important, the quality of its defense weaponry” (“Unspeakable Things Unspoken” 128). In this lecture, Morrison reminds us that we are the subjects of our own narrative, witnesses to and participants in our own experience, and, in no way coincidentally, in the experience of those with whom we have come in contact. We are not, in fact, “other.” We are choices. And to read imaginative literature by and about us is to choose to examine centers of the self and to have the opportunity to compare these centers with the “raceless” one with which we are, all of us, most familiar. (“Unspeakable Things Unspoken” 133) As a whole, Morrison’s Paradise demonstrates not just the problematic issues in the excluded black community, but also the suppression upon women and nature in a patriarchal society. Hence, the women in Ruby fail to gain such autonomy, whereas the free-spirited women in the Convent finally regain what they have lost—autonomy, freedom and self-fulfillment. Throughout the novel, the logic of domination triggers the domination upon women and nature. It also causes the racial division after the traumatic slavery period. And the exclusion of a community explicates the disillusion of building a harmonious paradise. In a sense, the dream to build up an ecotopia seems to be disrupted in Ruby. In the end, the biased and excluded Ruby town fails to function as a paradise for the townspeople; on the contrary, the harmonious relation with nature in the Convent serves as a paradise that leads to heal the wounds of the residents. As a whole, this thesis will consist of an introduction, three main chapters, and a conclusion. The Introduction discusses the theoretical framework of ecofeminism to Morrison’s Paradise and investigates the theoretical background of Ecofeminsim, Ecofeminist literary criticism, and the application of Ecofeminism to Paradise. In.

(20) Chen 15. terms of methodology, this thesis mainly takes the historical interconnection proposed by Carolyn Merchant, the socioeconomic interconnections advocated by Vandana Shiva, the conceptual and political interconnections suggested by Val Plumwood and Noël Sturgeon, and the empirical interconnections asserted by Karen J. Warren. Chapter One discusses the interrelations of nature and gender problems in Paradise. This chapter first offers a comparison of the natural environment and then investigates the similar fate the female suffered under the patriarchal society. After experiencing the patriarchal logic of “anthropocentrism,” these traumatic women long for healing the trauma inflicted upon their body and mind. Chapter Two mainly outlines the racial problems under the logic of colonization in Paradise. First investigating the logic of colonization, this chapter endeavors to illustrate how naturalizing the natives and the effect of denial provides the evidence of the logic of domination. This chapter also tries to explore the ways radical exclusion sprung from disallowal come to shape their identity and psyche, for it motivates the founding fathers to search a space of home. After that, this chapter also investigates the problem of identity conflict in miscegenation and the conflict between generations. Last, this chapter also illustrates the need to reclaim one’s identity. Chapter Three analyzes the interconnection of nature and ecotopia. This chapter first investigates the search for an ecotopia, and then discusses whether we should regard the ecosystem as a nurturing mother. In this chapter, I argue that religion can be served as nurturing power in Paradise. In addition, this chapter examines the collective and cultural identity of eco-community. In shaping the collective cultural identity, it is necessary to foreground the importance of naming and the healing from the eco-community. To conclude, this thesis aims to investigate, from the perspective of Ecofeminism, the individual and communal suppression in gender, race, and community, and also to.

(21) Chen 16. scrutinize the healing process of the black community in Morrison’s Paradise. My hope is not only to subvert the patriarchal oppression upon nature and its connection with gender, race and community, but also to carve out an innovative perspective of mutual care in ecosystem. By using the approach of Ecofeminism, this thesis would, I believe, provide an insightful analytical reading of Paradise..

(22) Chen 17. Chapter One The Interconnection between Women and Nature in Paradise Paradise aims, in part, at representing black women’s confrontation with patriarchal society, their search for a natural and harmonious way of life, and their eventual self-realization by subverting anthropocentrism and patriarchy. In this chapter I plan to adopt the theory of Ecofeminism to examining the relationship between women and nature in Paradise, investigating the natural image presented in Ruby and the Convent, interrogating the image of garden and the animal metaphors presented in the novel. This chapter also probes women’s suppression under the patriarchal society in the two locales, and thematizes the lack of communication and the women’s deception to illustrate male domination. In addition, this chapter also investigates women’s longing for healing. An Ecofeminist investigation, I believe, would shed light on the domineering praxis on women and nature in Paradise. 1.1 The Natural Environment of Ruby and the Convent Val Plumwood 1 argues that “western culture has treated the human/nature relation as a dualism and that this explains many of the problematic features of the west’s treatment of nature which underlie the environmental crisis, especially the western construction of human identity as ‘outside’ nature” (Feminism and the Mastery of Nature 2). Under such concept of western psyche, nature seems to be subordinated to reason. According to Plumwood, the concept of reason provides the unifying and defining contrast for the concept of nature, much as the concept of husband does for that of wife, as master for slave. Reason in the western tradition has been constructed as the. 1. Val Plumwood’s Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1993) expounds Ecofeminism, ecological feminism, and the other feminist theories such as deep ecology. Scrutinizing the relation between women and nature, Plumwood maintains that the connection of male domination upon women is highly related to the domination upon nature..

(23) Chen 18. privileged domain of the master, who has conceived nature as a wife or subordinate other encompassing and representing the sphere of materiality, subsistence and the feminine which the master has split off and constructed as beneath him. (Feminism and the Mastery of Nature 3) In this sense, nature is regarded as a feminine other that can be exploited and dominated by men. The ideology constructed by western civilization has viewed nature as something that can be controlled or developed. Norwood claimed that “women’s separation from pristine nature can be traced to the belief that woman is to man as nature is to culture” (“Heroines of Nature: Four Women Respond to the America Landscape” 324). Thinking in a similar vein, Plumwood writes, “racism, colonialism and sexism have drawn their conceptual strength from casting sexual, racial and ethnic difference as closer to the animal and the body construed as a sphere of inferiority, as a lesser form of humanity lacking the full measure of rationality or culture” (Feminism and the Mastery of Nature 4). The conception of viewing nature as an inferior sphere is also represented in the language we use as a realm of epistemic violence. In an essay called “Split Culture,” Susan Griffin notices that the language we use seems to suggest we attempt to emphasize we are superior to nature. As Griffin writes, “through the words masculine and feminine, which we use to designate two alien and alienated poles of human behavior, we make our sexuality a source of separation. We divide ourselves and all that we know along an invisible borderline between what we call Nature and what we believe is superior to Nature” (“Split culture” 7-8). In this way, we seem to regard nature as inferior to human beings in our mind-set, and such incarnated ideology is, as suggested by Griffin, “a mind in exile from its own wisdom” (“Split culture” 8). Upon examining the relationship between humanity and nature, L. Teal Willoughby also points out that “Ecofeminism views exploitation of nature as connected to the oppression of women” (Willoughby 135)..

(24) Chen 19. According to Rosemary Radford Ruether, Ecofeminism demonstrates the “concern for the interconnection of domination of women and exploitation of nature” (“Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature” 14). “Ecofeminist consciousness,” as suggested by Willoughby, “would seek a greater understanding of the etiology of natural events and the possible role of humanity within it. The relationship pattern in mutuality is an awareness of interconnectedness as well as the individuality” (Willoughby 136). Thus, Ecofeminism investigates “how these natural communities function to sustain a healthy web of life and how they become disrupted, causing death to the plant and animal life” (“Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature” 13). “Nature,” as Ruether suggested, “does not need us to rule over it, but runs itself very well, even better, without humans. We are the parasites on the food chain of life, consuming more and more, and putting too little back to restore and maintain the life system that supports us” (“Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature” 21). Thus, when we observe the natural environment of Ruby, we see “no baby’s breath anywhere,” for “not one garden had any” (149). Such a clue “no baby’s breath” is also a pun, which illustrates the potential problems of the lower birth rate in Ruby. Through the image of “water-hungry freesia” and “tea roses improperly dethorned” holding by Billie Delia in Arnette’s wedding, we can notice Ruby functions as an unhealthy web of life. In addition, Ruby is a place with “no public place to sit down.” And there “were closed doors and shut windows where parted curtains were swiftly replaced” (67-8). Here, the clues of the “closed doors” and the “shut windows” indicate that the town is excluded from others. This exclusion from the outside society is what Morrison intends to criticize in the novel. In short, while dominating and civilizing nature and women, the male have brought much more destruction upon nature in Ruby. Delores S. Williams has.

(25) Chen 20. pointed out, “the destruction of nature is rationalized on the basis of technology providing greater profits, comfort” (Williams 24). Under such annihilation upon nature, Ruby bears no life or growth. In this light, Ruby seems to be a place of infertility, sterility, and drabness. On the contrary, the environment of the Convent displays vitality, as we see the growing of the food production such as hot pepper, and “the relish lasted years with proper attention” (11). The interdependent relation between humanity and nature is harmonious in the Convent. As the narrator says, although the townspeople in Ruby attempt to grow the seeds, “the pepper grew nowhere outside the Convent’s garden” (11). The garden in the Convent can be linked to the Garden of Eden which provides prosperity, vigor, and affluence, since it is a place where “a breeze swept through the kitchen door, displacing the food smell with a sweeter one” (40). This is a place where “flowers mixed in with or parallel to rows of vegetables. In some places staked plants grew in a circle, not a line, in high mounds of soil” (40). Here, Ecofeminism helps us rethink the basic self in relation to the natural system. As Ruether writes, “the sustaining of an organic community of plant and animal life is a continual cycle of growth and disintegration” (“Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature” 22). In the conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, Morrison offers contrasting conceptions between Ruby and the Convent, Well, Ruby has the characteristics, the features of the Old Testament. It’s patriarchal. The men are very protective of their women, very concerned about their role as leaders. The convent, as it evolves, becomes a kind of crash pad for some women who are running away from all sorts of trauma, and they don’t seek the company of men. They have been hurt profoundly by men, so that even though they quarrel and fight most of the time, they’re.

(26) Chen 21. in what they consider a free place, a place where they don’t have to fear that they are the people to be preyed upon, but the values are different. (Farnsworth 157) In a manner, the Convent is a harmless and helpful place, where people can be taken in and rest. In short, the contrasting image between Ruby and the Convent demonstrates the fact that the patriarchal domination over nature provides no euphoria and happiness the people genuinely need. 1.1.1 The Animal Metaphor In an essay called “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology,” Ynestra King writes that women seem to be silenced and becomes the “others” in the modern society, and nature also become ‘other, “something essentially different from the dominant, to be objectified and subordinated. Women, who are identified with nature, have been similarly objectified and subordinated in patriarchal society. Women and nature, in a sense, are the original ‘others’” (King 21). Such “process of objectification,” of appropriating and dominating women and nature as otherness, are accentuated by men, for “they forget that they were born of women, were dependent on women in their early helpless years, and are dependent on nonhuman nature all their lives, which allows first for objectification and then for domination” (King 22). The patriarchal domination over nature and women can also be shown through the animal metaphors presented in the novel. In Paradise, some interesting animal metaphors like the green snakes in the Oven and the bear presented in Fleetwood’s house, for the two metaphors have great connection with the “twin dominations of women” and “the oppression of the rest of nature” (Ecofeminism and the Sacred 1). For the first animal metaphor, the green snakes represent the men’s biased viewpoints of women. As the narrator observes, through the perspective of K. D., “where the Oven had been, small green snakes slept in the sun. Who could have.

(27) Chen 22. imagined that twenty-five years later in a brand-new town a Convent would beat out the snakes, the Depression, the tax man and the railroad for sheer destructive power?” (17). Here, the green snakes could represent the patriarchal power, in that K.D. attempts to tendentiously blame the Convent women whom he thinks are equipped with a destructive power. I think this destructive power can also be connected to the domineering potentiality. Apparently, if we attempt to subvert such internalized patriarchal dominance over women and nature, we should be perceptive to the biased viewpoints as claimed by the male. This “logic of domination is identified by Karen J. Warren, as she writes that “the sort of logic of domination used to justify the domination of humans by gender, racial, ethnic, or class status is also used to justify the domination of nature” (“The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism” 132). Another image is that of the bear in Fleetwood’s house. In a meeting between the Morgans and the Fleetwoods, the male members negotiate about Arnette and K.D.’s wedding, for Arnette has got pregnant by K.D. In a manner, the bear image shows a sense of male power that cannot be overturned or challenged, and this “invisible” power is reticent, overwhelming and repressive. In “Women/ Wilderness,” Ursula K. LeGuin has made a perceptive comment on the hunting of the bear, as she writes, “the men’s wilderness is real, it is where men can go hunting and exploring and having all-male adventures, away from the village, the shared center, and it is accessible to and structured by language” (LeGuin 46). According to Warren, the patriarchal center as constructed by language, reveals the inferiority of the female and the superiority of the male. Thus, the gathering between the Morgans and Fleetwoods demonstrates scene of silence, since the conversation is all controlled by men. In the discussion, we note that Arnette is going to college in August, but her father claimed that “I’m her father. I’ll arrange her mind” (61). This authoritative statement exhibits the patriarchal power that has silenced.

(28) Chen 23. Arnette. As Warren argues, Patriarchal conceptual frameworks that justify the domination of women also justify the domination of nonhuman nature by conceiving women and nature in terms which feminize nature, naturalize women, and position both women and nature as inferior to male-gender identified culture. (“A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on Ecofeminist Spiritualities” 123) In this scene, Arnette is positioned as inferior to the male. This event clearly shows that women are silenced and absent in the male discussion. After the negotiation, we hear “the tippy-tap steps of women who were nowhere in sight” (61). The absence of the women’s participation suggests their oppression by men. Sadly speaking, we only hear the sounds of the women’s footsteps. In short, the two animal images—the green snakes in the Oven and the bear in Fleetwoods’s house—foreground the male domination over women. To conclude, the interconnecting relationship between women and nature is shown by the patriarchal domination. Such oppressions upon women and nature often carry with violent destructions which have resulted in the crisis of survival for both women and nature. Shiva in “Development, Ecology, and Women” avers that “patriarchal categories which understand destruction as ‘production’ and regeneration of life as ‘passivity’ have generated a crisis of survival” (Shiva 82). Thus, we see the contrasting image between Ruby and Convent: the former provides no vitality on account of being controlled by patriarchy, while the latter contributes to prosperity by virtue of the harmonious lifestyle with nature. Ruby is a place that violates the “integrity of organic interconnected, interdependent systems, that sets in motion a process of exploitation, inequality, injustice, and violence” (Shiva 84). On the contrary, the Convent is a place that emphasizes nature’s harmony and maintains good relations with it..

(29) Chen 24. 1.2 The Similar Fate the Female Suffered under the Patriarchal Society The women’s suppression under the patriarchal society can be linked to the male’s false projection upon women, for such a biased ideology has been implemented in the Western civilization for centuries. According to LeGuin, “those who were identified with Nature, which listens, as against Man, who speaks—those people are speaking. They speak for themselves and for the other people, the others who have been silent, or silenced, or unheard, the animals, the trees, the rivers, the rocks” (LeGuin 46). In a section called “Sexist-Naturist Language,” from her essay “Taking Empirical Data Seriously: An Ecofeminist Philosophical Perspective,” Warren notices that the language used to depict women and nature often is “sexist and naturist.” Warren intends to center on “empirical women-nature connections” (“Taking Empirical Data Seriously: An Ecofeminist Philosophical Perspective” 3). As Warren mentions, women are often endowed with animal features in language. As she writes, women in a (patriarchal) culture where animals are seen as inferior to humans (men) thereby reinforces and authorizes women’s inferior status. Similarly, language which feminizes nature in a (patriarchal) culture where women are viewed as subordinate and inferior reinforces and authorizes the domination of nature: ‘Mother Nature’ is raped, mastered, conquered, mined; her secretes are ‘penetrated’ and her womb is to be put into service of the ‘man of science.’ (“Taking Empirical Data Seriously: An Ecofeminist Philosophical Perspective” 12) In this light, such oppression upon women and nature is, as Warren argues, “justified by feminizing them; the exploitation of women is justified by naturalizing them” (Warren 1997:12). In a sense, women are often demonized by men. In “Nature as Disorder: Women and Witches” from The Death of Nature (1989), Carolyn Merchant.

(30) Chen 25. has pointed out the idea of “disorder in nature.” According to Merchant, the disorder, “symbolized in the macrocosm by the dissolution of the frame of nature and the uncivilized wilderness of the new world, in society by the witch who controlled the forces of nature and the women who overturned its order, and in the self by the bestiality of the Indian and the cannibal, the sexual lust of the female, and the animal passions of all humans heralded the death of the old order of nature” (Merchant 148). Therefore, such an ideology triggers the male to conquer the “disorderly woman” and “chaotic nature” at the same time. Throughout centuries, women, as suggested by Merchant, seem to be reproached with the lure and seduction in causing the male’s physical corruption. Such evil images of women as witches are often constructed by men. As Merchant has explained, “once imprisoned, they [women] were stripped of their clothing, searched for the marks of familiars on their body, and examined for signs of intercourse with the devil” (Merchant 138). In Paradise, we see that the male have strong prejudice towards the Convent women, for “what they see is the devil’s bedroom, bathroom, and his nasty playpen” (17). The association of women as the devil betrays the misogynist mind, which is what Susan Griffin has noticed in “Ecofeminism and Meaning” in Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature (1997), since “the racist mind, the misogynist mind, the mind being afraid of nature and which denies natural limitation and mortality are often the same mind” ((“Ecofeminism and Meaning” 225). Griffin also indicates that “neither rape, nor the word woman can be understood without an understanding of racism, nor can racism be understood without an understanding of the social construction of gender, nor can either be fully understood apart from ecology” (“Ecofeminism and Meaning” 225). In Paradise, such misogynists’ viewpoints are displayed by Reverend Pulliam, who supposes these Convent women are “like children, always on the lookout for fun, devoted to it but always needing a break in order to have it” (157). Based on Pulliam’s perspective, the.

(31) Chen 26. Convent women, the “fun-obsessed adults” were “signs of already advanced decay” (157). Such a conception of misogyny foreshadows the underlying motivation in the upcoming slaughter in the Convent. As Shiva observes, gender subordination and patriarchy are the forms of oppressions that have “taken on new and more violent forms through the project of development. Patriarchal categories which understand destruction as ‘production’ and regeneration of life as ‘passivity’ have generated a crisis of survival” (Shiva 82). Such a crisis of survival of the female is represented in Paradise, for the women’s identities are often oppressed or impaired by the male. In Toni Morrison and Womanist Discourse (1999), Aoi Mori points out, “black women are similarly subject to the maneuvering power of reflections in a mirror which reinforce an even more perilous subordination” (Mori 58). In Paradise, some of these women are battered by their male lovers; the others are silenced by their mates; and still the others are betrayed and deceived by their romance in love. In this section, I would put these women’s suppression by men into three categories: male domination, the lack of communication, and the deception. I would argue that the three themes are interconnected to Warren’s concept of the logic of domination. In the following paragraphs, I would illustrate these themes in detail, for the theme of male domination can be shown through Mavis and Seneca; the theme of lack of communication can be found in Soane and Dovey; and the theme of deception can be noticed in Pallas and Sweetie. The goal of ecofeminism is, according to Mies and Shiva, to “address the inherent inequalities in world structures which permit the North to dominate the South, men to dominate women, and the frenetic plunder of ever more resources for ever more unequally distributed economic gain to dominate culture” (Mies and Shiva 2). According to Merchant, since women are often defined with the function of.

(32) Chen 27. reproduction, such parturition are seen as adjacent to nature, their social status is inferior to the male in terms of the cultural aspects (Merchant 144). With this in mind, I argue that in Paradise the women’s identities are oppressed by the male, which can be shown by the two characters in the Convent: Mavis and Seneca. The patriarchal domination often involves violation of women’s bodies violently as well as the exploitation of nature. As Delores S. Williams points out, “violation and exploitation of the land and of women’s bodies is, in part, caused by widespread human disrespect for the unity of nature’s placements” (Williams 27). Thus, the act of “breaking the spirit of nature today through rape and violence done to the earth” is similar to exploiting the women’s bodies through “rape and violence,” which, “constitute crimes against nature and against the human spirit” (Williams 27). Such rape and violence can be shown through Mavis and Seneca, for both of them have experienced the brutal and unwilling acts of sex committed by men. After being tortured by her husband’s brutal and emotionless sex, Mavis remains quiet and waits all night to run away from him. Like Mavis, Seneca also suffers from male domination through violent rape as well, for she has been raped by her foster brother, Harry. He is the one who got her underwear off and then “a safety pin holding the waist of her jeans” also came down and scratched her stomach with blood. When she told Mama Greer, the adult denied by saying, “Don’t you ever say that again. . . . Nothing like that happens here” (261). Consequently, the effect of denial against the sexual harassment damaged the development of Seneca’s self-identity. Plumwood in “Androcentrism and Anthropocentrism: Parallels and Politics” points out that “denial is often accomplished via a perceptual politics of what is worth noticing and what can be acknowledged, but fear and anxiety remain when the Other threatens to return” (“Androcentrism and Anthropocentrism: Parallels and Politics” 338). According to Plumwood, the effect of denial makes Seneca as “the exception, negation, or lack of.

(33) Chen 28. the virtue of the Center” (“Androcentrism and Anthropocentrism: Parallels and Politics” 338). When Seneca grows up, she seems to be delighted in the cut on her body. The intersecting scars Seneca created on her arms bring about a sense of distorting relief and temporary comfort to her. To sum up, both Mavis and Seneca have been violently raped by men. The physical and mental wounds upon them explain the ruthlessness of the men’s domineering behavior. Through the perspective of Ecofeminism, we see that women and nature have long been colonized and “‘opened up’ for free exploitation and subordination, transformed into the ‘others,’ the ‘objects,’ in the process of European (male) ‘subject’s’ emancipation from the ‘realm of necessity’ (Mies and Shiva 7). In this light, women are turned into the submissive “others” that can be silenced or treated at men’s will. The restraint, silence and reticence among the female characters also reveal the women’s subordinating status. Here, the theme of the lack of communication can be seen through Soane and Dovey. Similarly, the twin sisters Soane and Dovey, seem to be turned into the submissive objects that are “opened up” for subordination in their relation with their husbands. The lack of speech between the two couples, in a sense, becomes a serious problem. The incident can be shown when Soane said “I don’t understand, Deek.” Instead of explaining in detail, Deek only replied, “You don’t need to.” Apparently, such a male-centered statement shows Deek’s patriarchal power. As the narrator observes near the end of the novel, “Soane is chastising herself for not having talked, just talked to Deek. Told him she knew about Connie, that the loss of their child was a judgment against her—not him” (287-88). Since Soane is unable to express her true feelings under such an oppressive environment, the misunderstanding between her and Deek also becomes one of the factors in annihilating the Convent women. On the other hand, the problem of the lack of speech between Dovey and.

(34) Chen 29. Steward is also recognizable. In the relation between the two, the failure of the intimate conversation becomes a serious problem in this affinity as well. Supposedly, Dovey’s miscarriages had significantly affected Steward’s mind. The cursing barrenness instigates Steward’s wrath, acrimony and asperity. In the kinship between the two, Dovey is often chilled by her husband’s intimidation, unable to utter for herself. Here, Morrison uses an interesting symbol, the locked door, to describe their affinity. The door Steward has locked symbolizes the exclusion and segregation from his wife. Such “exclusivity and dispossession,” suggested by Shiva, could provoke and worsen “the colonial processes of ecological degradation and the loss of political control over nature’s sustenance base” (Shiva 81). When Dovey tried to open the door, “it was locked—again . . . Dovey was sure theirs was the only locked door in Ruby. What was he afraid of?” (90). In this context the lock epitomizes a sense of exclusivity and a sense of male pride that the female is not allowed to share. To conclude, both Soane and Dovey experience the predicament of the lack of speech and the male suppression respectively. In other words, the two sisters have suffered emotional and psychological torment under the patriarchal hegemony, for they are forced to be submissive while finding a place to gain their autonomy and voice. According to Judith Plant, since women are often connected with the “subordinate” and “deferential” essence, they somehow carry the obligation of tending the others with “guilt and anxiety” (Plant 3). In Morrison’s Paradise, this guilt and anxiety can be observed in Sweetie. Upon hearing the cries of a baby, Sweetie became angry suddenly because all the other babies were silent. I think Sweetie’s anxiety is triggered by jealousy and shame on the grounds that her motherhood is affected by her four abnormal babies. Therefore, the desire for babies’ crying and the deep shame at the babies’ imperfection motivate Sweetie to lie to her.

(35) Chen 30. friends and family. Thus, the Convent women become the victims of her beguilement. According to Plant, “because of this skewed situation, caring often becomes entangled with personal frustrations over feelings of powerlessness, leading to an inability to take responsibility” (Plant 3). In a sense, some of the female characters are often trapped in such a predicament. They know they need to take care of the children, but, at the same time, they also invent lies in attempting to get rid of the children. Therefore, the theme of deception can be observed through the characterization of the female characters, for these women are forced to tell lies after experiencing extreme agony in their life. For example, Arnette gets an abortion in the Convent, for she is unwilling to take the responsibility; Sweetie is frustrated with her four broken babies and seems to transfer the guilt on the Convent women by falsifying the wickedness of the Convent women; Pallas is betrayed by her boyfriend and her mother so she lied about her pregnancy to the Convent women at first. In a nutshell, the theme of deception is important in the novel in all respects. In fact, all of the female have been driven to the verge of a temporary sensory breakdown: Pallas is unable to speak, and Sweetie is unable to hear. But unlike Sweetie, Pallas reveals the veil of deception after receiving the healing energy from the support of the Convent women by retelling her painful past. By contrast, Sweetie is the one who undergoes no change, since she is still trapped by the vicious circle of self-deception upon blaming the faults on the others. In a sense, after experiencing the traumatic deception in relations with men, most of the females are weary of the physical and mental wounds. To some extent, they crave for respect and healing from the wounds. 1.3 The Desire for Healing Throughout the novel, most of the female characters have experienced male domination, suffered from the lack of communication and are agonized by a sense of.

(36) Chen 31. deception.. In “Toward an Ecofeminist Spirituality,” Charlene Spretnak reminds us. that “as we all bear scars from having been raised under patriarchy, the ability to heal ourselves and each other psychically and physically is essential to the growth of women’s culture” (Spretnak 130). According to Ruether, human beings are “finite organisms, centers of experience in a life cycle that must disintegrate back into the nexus of life and arise again in new forms” (“Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature” 22). Therefore, recovery from the wounds, or “from alienated, hierarchical dualism to life-sustaining mutuality,” is strongly connected to the rituals of healing, which “will radically change the patterns of patriarchal culture” (“Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature” 22). As Spretnak writes, “rituals created within a framework of women’s spirituality differ in form and content from the empty, hierarchically imposed, patriarchal observances with which most of us grew up. They involve healing, strengthening, creative energy that expands with spontaneity from a meaningful core of values” (Spretnak 130). Thus, it is clear that these mentally and physically injured women desire for a paradise of love and acceptance. In other words, these women long for a “home” to heal their fragmented and broken hearts. In “Community—Meeting Our Deepest Needs,” Helen Forsey reminds us that “the concept of ‘home’ has been viciously distorted—co-opted by capitalism to refer to an exchangeable piece of real estate; corrupted by patriarchy to mean a man’s castle, where women and children are neither free nor safe” (Forsey 231). In a manner, these wounded women crave for a home to heal their wounds. In Paradise such desire for healing can be shown in three aspects: the meal Consolata prepared represents the gaining of energy from nature; the drawing on the ground means the better understanding of oneself, and the loud dreaming symbolizes certain sense of spiritual purification..

(37) Chen 32. In Paradise, the Convent is like an asylum, or a shelter that serves as a home to the injured women. For example, the Convent is “the most peaceful place on earth” for Mavis (182). As for Billie Delia, the Covent is, “a place where you can stay for a while. No questions. . . . you can collect yourself there, think things through, with nothing or nobody bothering you all the time. They’ll take care of you or leave you alone—whichever way you want it” (176). For Pallas, the Convent is like a shelter, with “images of a grandmother rocking peacefully, of arms, a lap, a singing voice soothed her. The whole house felt permeated with a blessed malessness, like a protected domain, free of hunters but exciting too. As though she might meet herself here—an unbridled, authentic self, but which she thought of as a ‘cool’ self—in one of this house’s many rooms” (177). Indeed, the Convent is a place that provides, in the words of Forsey, “the need for roots in the earth, for a reliable, sustained relatedness to a particular area or locality. Again, the multiple vision of people seeking and creating balanced, egalitarian, harmonious communities all have in common that element of sturdy rootedness” (Forsey 231). 1.3.1 The Healing Meal: Energized by Nature as the Resource of Food Such a harmonious community can be found in the sharing of the food, since the meal represents the natural power of healing. For instance, after Consolata had set the table and placed the food, she finally found herself going back and said, “I call myself Consolata Sosa. If you want to be here you do what I say. Eat how I say. Sleep when I say. And I will teach you what you are hungry for” (251). This statement “I call myself” represents the awakening in Consolata’s mind, now she can express her voice assertively. Consolata’s change can also be indicated from the transformation of her appearance, for after the meal, she is the one with higher cheekbones and stronger chin, and with skin smooth as a peach. At this stage, Consolata’s mind and soul has changed as well, as she proclaims, “if you have a place that you should be in and.