本文是一篇英语毕业论文，本论文深入剖析了小说《玛丽·巴顿》中的女性问题和环境问题。卡罗琳·麦茜特首次提出有机论自然观理论是在其《自然之死》中，该理论主要探讨现代社会中人与自然如何达到和谐共生的问题。根据卡罗琳·麦茜特的观点，正是由于现代科技才导致自然遭受了来自人类社会的从有机论自然观到机械论自然观的转变。
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 An Introduction to Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) is highly commented by Karl Marx as “one of modern British and great novelists” (Marx, 1998: 686). Her works can be classified as the industrial novels and the pastoral ones. Especially her industrial novels lead another literary trend during the period when the Gothic novels are still prevailing. Gaskell’s industrial novels are abundant in realistic criticism which draws a wide range of echoes from literary critics. Today, in order to interpret Mary Barton better, let’s explore the female novelist’s experiences firstly to discover the inner relationship between the author and her novel.
Elizabeth Gaskell was born on September 29th, 1810 in Linsay Street in Chelsea, in London, but she spent her formative years in Cheshire, Startford, upon-Avon and the north of England. Her father was William Stevenson who was the Unitarian Minister and a writer. Her mother was Elizabeth Holland who was a lady from the grand family in the Midlands. As the eighth child of the couple, Elizabeth Gaskell didn’t feel too much love from her mother, because when she was just a baby, her mother died in 1811. Then she began to live with her aunt in Knutsford. Her aunt’s family had great influence on Elizabeth Gaskell, counting her character, values, knowledge and culture. In Knutsford little Elizabeth Gaskell was able to approach the nature and to feel the calm rural life. To some extent, the experience of rural life in Knutsford had such a profound effect on the rest of her life that she once expressed her deeply affection for the nature in her many works. It was the precious years in Knutsford that shaped her early ecological consciousness. In Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell can’t help praising the peaceful rural life for many times.
1.2 An Introduction to Mary Barton
Mary Barton, as Gaskell’s first novel, is a typical industrial novel with the strong social concern. Different from the Gothic novels prevailing at that times, it presents us another perspective of observing and considering the world, which still has the realistic significance today. The whole plot of the novel unfolds around the tough life of the Bartons under the background of industrialized Victorian Age. Gaskell honestly exposes the workers’ plight and the women’s sufferings, and imparts her deeply sympathy to the lower-class people. Elizabeth Gaskell even declares in public that “I had always felt a deep sympathy with the care-worn men……A little manifestation of this sympathy and a little attention to the expression of feelings on the part of some of the work-people” (Gaskell, 2006: 3). However, as a realistic writer, Gaskell must reflect on the social conflicts from the sensible perspective. To set a harmonious model of society, she transforms all the social problems into the exploration of the relationship between nature and humans and questions anthropocentrism which is based on androcentrism.
The novel describes the emerging city, Manchester, during the period from the 1830s to the1850s. It is a crucial phase in Britain history. The Parliamentary Reform is implemented in 1832. And the industrial capitalist class mount on the political stage and carry out a series of political and economic reforms to accelerate the development of capitalism. The large-scale machinery production brings rapid improvement of productivity. Accordingly, western world turns to an entirely new leaf. As the greatest capitalist country in the world, the British Empire controls many colonies in Asia and Africa and countless fortunes which it gains from its colonies flows into the country. The Great Britain embraces its “Golden Times”. Manchester, of course, develops into the “industrial center” and “the largest cotton textile center” in the country.
Chapter Two Theoretical Framework and Methodology
2.1 Theoretical Framework
Eco-feminism is a kind of feminist research with the ecological consciousness, which aims to explore the similarity between the dilemmas that nature and women suffer to construct the inner connection between them. Karen J. Warren, Val Plum and Ynestra King think of eco-feminism as the part of feminism and call it as the third wave of feminism. Different from other ecological thoughts, like the social ecology and deep ecology, the left-wing school of thoughts carries the strong color of feminism, completely overthrows so-called androcentrism and anthropocentrism and provides humans with an entirely new position full of criticism to observe and consider the nature, women and men.
2.1.1The Development and Concept of Eco-feminism
Eco-feminism is the product of social and political movements. With the rapid development of industrial civilization and abuse of natural resources, the two social movements coincide with each other dramatically ——women’s liberation, as a symbol during its controversial infancy in Betty Friedian’s Feminine Mystique (1963), and the ecology movement emerging in the 1960s and drawing the public attention on Earth Day,1970. In 1962, Rachel Carson publishes her book The Silent Spring, which is sharply critical of the harm of pesticide. The ecologist expresses her anxiety of humans’ predatory exploitation. Subsequently, feminists actively take the banner of ecology movements, which promotes the birth of a new theory. In 1974, the explicit expression of the term ——“eco-feminism” is firstly coined by the French feminist Francoise D’Eaubone in her Le Féminisme ou la Mort, which symbolizes that the theory has its succinct name.
2.2 Methodology
Currently, research methods are classified into different kinds. Among those methods, qualitative research is rather prevailing. The qualitative research is initially considered as the basic research model and the major procedure in the research field of natural science, and then it is gradually applied into the social science to discover the question and to observe the social phenomena. And it also reaches the ideal goal. Therefore, we will use the research method.
The main representatives of qualitive research consist of action research, case study research and ethnography. The researchers come to a conclusion by gathering diverse sources on observation and participant observation, interview and questionnaires, documents and texts, and researchers’ analyses.
In the paper, we will take advantage of case study to concentrate on one person or a group of relevant people, and observe their many aspects of language and behavior to draw a conclusion. And we will take Mary Barton for a case to support the eco-feminist opinion.
Chapter Three Nature and Women:“Others” under the Supreme Dominion ........ 19
3.1 The Mechanized Nature ..................... 20
3.1.1 The Plundered Nature ................................. 21
3.1.2 The Polluted Nature ........................................ 23
Chapter Four The Protest from Nature and Women ................................. 33
4.1 The Revenge from the Mechanized Nature ..................... 33
4.1.1 The Rage of Nature ................................... 33
4.1.2 The Hostility of Nature ................................ 36
Chapter Five The Return of Organic World View:Nature,Women and Men .............................. 48
5.1 The Egalitarian Relationship between Women and Men ................. 49
5.2 The Integral Relationship between Nature and Humans ................. 50
Chapter Five The Return of Organic World View: Nature, Women and Men
5.1 The Egalitarian Relationship between Women and Men
Throughout the history of feminist criticism, women have been attempting to find their own identity rather than the insignificant “others”. The British writer Virginia Woolf is the first guy to propose the concept of “bisexual community”. In her opinion, “every one of us has two forces to control everything, a male force and a female power. The most appropriate situation is to live in harmony with two forces, only in this fusion, the brain becomes very fertile and can fully utilize all the faculties” (Woolf, 1977: 237). Virginia Woolf overthrows the binary opposition under the hegemony of androcentrism. From the perspective of the theory, she firstly accepts the fact that women are physically and psychologically different from men, but she denies the view that women cannot surrender to the so-called supreme dominion from men. Besides, women have the virtues and merits that men don’t possess. By proposing the concept of “bisexual community”, reciprocal relationship between men and women is gradually emphasized. Women’s softness and men’s power are complemented perfectly to realize the harmony in two sexes. In another word, it fulfils the deconstruction of hierarchy and patriarchy.
As egalitarian relationship between women and men is advocated, a new kind of world view comes into being accordingly. It is the projection of balance between women and men onto the world view, which will turn the modern mechanistic world view into another inclusive world view. That is the modern organic world view. Hence, the modern organic world that humans, other creatures and nature coexist with each other, is never to block the development of modern society to return to the ancient the organic world. Contrarily, we just advocate humans to explore a kind of entirely new concept about the coexistence between nature and humans. And if the new concept reflects into the relationship between women and men, it is the egalitarian relationship to overturn the modern mechanistic world view. That is, based on the construction of egalitarian relationship between women and men, a harmonious world is built.
Conclusion
Even though Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell has been published for many years, the realistic glory of the novel is still shining today, especially in the present time when the global ecological crises are more severe and challenging than any previous period of human history. Gaskell’s strong critical attitude towards the industrialized Victorian society gives greater inspiration to the present people. Undoubtedly, the industrialization may bring about a great deal of progress and development, however, it also triggers a series of problems, such as the issue of women and the ecological crises, which are deeply reflected in Mary Barton. Guided by Carolyn Merchant’s organic worldview, this paper fully examines and deeply interprets Gaskell’s earlier eco-feminist consciousness in this novel and draws the following conclusions.
First of all, nature has been severely mechanized during the process of accelerating the industrialization. The exploitative manner of capitalism has caused serious deterioration of nature. Under Gaskell’s pen, humans play the role of “steward”, while nature has been lowered as the inanimate “machine”. Consequently, the balance between nature and humans is broken. Meanwhile, as the female principles of the organic nature have been distorted in the exploitative way, women also suffer from the similar dilemma. They are also despised as the “cheap labor” of factories or men’s private assets. Both nature and women are under the supreme dominion of mechanism.
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