Date of Completion
Spring 4-24-2018
Thesis Advisor(s)
Pamela Bedore
Honors Major
English
Disciplines
Biodiversity | Biology | Comparative Literature | Food Biotechnology | Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore the speculative fiction works of three prominent, female speculative fiction writers: Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood,and Octavia Butler through an ecofeminist lens. Ecofeminism, as first coined by Francois D'Eaubonne in 1974, is a philosophy that compares the oppression and abuse of women to that of the environment. This article notes how Le Guin, Atwood, and Butler portray women and the environment in post-apocalyptic science fiction. Specifically, this article looks at how these authors explore food acquisition and consumption in their various worlds. This article asks the question, how does our relationship with food (acquisition, agriculture, manufacturing, and consumption) reflect our relationship with our ecological environment and our understanding of women and the female role. The following will examine Le Guin's The Left and of Darkness and The Dispossessed, Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy, and Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy.
Recommended Citation
Williams, Cara, "Ecofeminism in the Speculative Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and Margaret Atwood" (2018). Honors Scholar Theses. 569.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/569