Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
Corporeal Crisis and the Contested Female Terrain: An Ecofeminist Reading of ‘The Birth-Mark’
Department of English Language and Literature, An-najah National University, Nablus, Palestine, B.O. Box 7, Mobile no.
00972599339272,
Dr. Ahmad Qabaha, “Corporeal Crisis and the Contested Female Terrain: An Ecofeminist Reading of ‘The Birth-Mark’”.
American Research Journal of English and Literature, Volume 7, Issue No. 1, 2021, pp. 1-6.
Abstract
This paper originally and substantially studies Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Birth-Mark’ from an ecofemninsit perspective, while exploring the
interconnections and interdependency between the systematic and institutional ways in which woman and nature were dominated by male-centred society in
19th century America. By building on significant contributions to ecofeminist theory, this paper argues that the oppression of women and exploitation of
nature by patriarchal culture and male-run institutions are represented in ‘The Birth-Mark’ as a product of masculinist, colonialist and capitalist assumptions
and practices. This paper demonstrates that patriarchal culture’s unjust hierarchies and systems of domination are connected conceptually, and the promise
of Aylmer to relieve Georgina from the corporeal crisis is an instance of difference-and-hierarchy-based domination; it aims at perpetuating the accepted
authority and power of man who can contest God’s female terrain, and to claim his ability to recreate and reintegrate it in ways that show absolute control
over nature and God.
