Ecofeministic Perspectives in Atwood’s Surfacing

S.Sasikala

Asst. Prof, of English

Chidambarampillai College for Women

Joyce Nelson says, “Ecofeminism bridges the gap between ecology and feminism : strands of analysis which have existed side by side over past decades without necessarily interwining.  By making explicit the connections between a misogynist society and a society which has exploited ‘mother earth‘         to the point of environmental crisis Ecofeminism has helped to highlight the deep splits in patriarchal paradigm”. (20)

This paper attempts to take an in-depth study of Atwood’s Surfacing (1972) from an eco-feministic perspective. Atwood forecasts the upcoming feminist wave and ecological movements in this novel. Atwood’s themes are replete with victimization and survival of women in male-dominated society.  In her novels, she expresses the idea that men and women are equal at every level of existence.  Her protagonists’ remodify the term ‘Survival’ and emerge as a new woman.  In this context, this novel’s protagonist brings out the bondage between Women and Nature.

The protagonist of the novel is unnamed she is commercial artist she left her isolated rural background and family nine years earlier, returns back to it in finding her missing father.  She is accompanied by three friends Anna, Joe and David.  Her quest embanks on two levels-the search for her real self and the other is alienation from the real world. She explores her psychological journey by diving deep to the roots that leads her into the natural world.

            Her quest for her father makes her to discover herself which flashbacks her dead marriage , the abortion, the break from her parents and the confused value of her childhood. 

In the end of the novel, she realises she is no longer a victim of the society and gains power to face the world.

            When the protagonist encounters nature she finds her real self is being lost.  She could also identify even the nature has been victimized by Americans. The opening of novel states this.  The narrator is shocked to find her native place’s beauty devasted by men.  It is strange for her to see the new roads and new routes. She expresses her deep concern for natural surrounding as she thinks it as her own tragic reflection.  She sees how her life has been received and destroyed similar to that nature she pities the white birches  death as nostalgia hits her when she finds the old bridge replaced by a huge concrete structure.

I can’t believe I’m on the same road again, twisting along past the lake where the white birches are dying, the disease is spreading up from the south, and I notice they now have sea-planes for hive(Surfacing,3)

            The narrator is completely against the environmental degradation by the technological expansions.  When she reaches her native, she feels that she is far away her place.  She sensed that everything has changed.  People’s American accent made her to think of intrusion of the foreigners in her native land.  She finds that the native is being contaminated and spoiled by invasions.  She opines that Americans kill the nature just for fun, for recreation and for establishing their power.  She shows her protest:

It wasn’t the men I hated, it was the Americans, the human beings, men and women both, They’d had their chances but they turned against the gods(15). 

Like a true ecologist ,the narrator feels hers of hurt whatever harms,she sees done to the environment, Trees, Frogs, fish, birds triggers her good old memories when her brother catches the frogs, she lets it out.  Similarly when she sees the dead bird, she is depressed and disgusted by the society  in killing birds.  In another circumstance, when Joe and David films the fish’s innards.  She pleads  them not  kill the fish .

            Anna is another victim of the submissive women in the novel.  She is supposed to be the protagonist’s best friend although she has known her for just about two months.  The relationship between Anna and David exemplifies the male-dominated world.  As Simon de Beauvoir says, “the male world is harsh, sharp edged, its voices are too resounding, the lights too crowds, the contracts rough”(55) David has his own rules and treats Anna as a slave.  He is unconcerned of her health and dream.  He humiliates her by taking her nude photographs.  As Petra kelly rightly observes, “women are sex toys for men; women who assent their independence and power are in some way defective” (118).Like nature even the female body is seen as a resource to be colonized and commercialized. David forces Anna to fulfill his desires He asks her to skip off her clothes for the movie Random samples.  This makes Anna a helpless, powerless and expressionless figure.  When the narrator sees this incident she thinks of her fake husband who shattered her by showing the photographs of his wife and children.  She calls  Anna as one of the victims  in the masculine world.  She recalls hers “It was worse for a girl to ask questions than for a boy” (112).  In another circumstance, the boys tie her to the tree and forgets to release her.

            The novel surfacing is enriched with ecofeminism. It’s impact is laid entirely in the character of the narrator.  The natural surroundings has strengthened her to refin and recast her.  Before the narrator’s journey to the natural world she was suppressed by the external world.  She was weak enough to face the reality.  Her ex-lover used his skill to seduce her.  When she is pregnant he uses all tricks to abort the child.  She passively accepted it.  She couldn’t defend herself of the Anti-natural act. The abortion itself illustrates the ecofeminist thought, devaluation of life-giving and the celebration of life-taking are profound for ecology and women.  For here ex-lover, “it is simple like getting wart removed”.(185)

            Atwood emphasis the fact that men exploit the bodies of women for their needs.  They have controlled the process of child birth which nature has assigned only to women.  Her abortion created a compassion for flora and fauna of the Quebec island.  She believes nature can give solace and solution for her degradation.”Human beings are not radically separate from nature, that the fulfillment of our humanity is profoundly liked with learning to appreciate the nature within us and without. (113)

            The narrator accepts her pasts, ready to confront and explore the present.  When her aborted child is surfacing within her, she can’t forgive herself for it she confronts her own guilt over the abortion and she feels that becoming pregnant again is an act of redemption for her.

            This time I will do in myself… the baby will ship out easily as an egg, a kitten and I’ll lick it ff and bite the word, the blood returning to the ground where it belong; the moon will be full, pulling.  In the morning I will be able to see it, it will be covered with shining fur, as god, I will never torch it any words. (209)

            The narrator feels a great change in her.  Her thoughts of image of division and death is replaced by the image of  wholeness and life.  She felt safe in the environment surrounds her.  She feels:

            Through the trees the sun glances; the swamp around me smoulders, energy decay turning to growth, green fire.  I remember the heron by ago it will be insects, frogs, fish and other herons.  My body also changes, the creature in me, plant-animal sends out filament in me, I ferry it secure between death and life, I multiply.(217)

            She behaves as a natural woman. In the beginning of the novel,  she ate the tin food where as towards the end she prefers the uncooked food.  She relies on mother earth to strengthen her physically and mentally.  As she discovers herself her journey comes to an end.  She decides to stay back in Quebe and give birth to the ‘gold fish’ glowing in her womb.  She is not worried about the sex of the child but asserts her mind to nuture the child.  She says.

I can’t know yet; it’s too early.  But I assume it: If I die it dies, If I starve it starves with me.  It might be first one, the first true woman; it must be born allowed.(250)

She refuses to be a victim.  She is determined to face the reality and truth.  The narrator acts like an ecologist by finding total harmony  with nature.  She is against technologies and invasions into the physique of mother earth.  She gains absolute freedom is the earth like the people of olden times.  With the deep contentment she says, “The lake is quiet, the tree surround me, asking and giving nothing.(251)

            The novel deals with issues related to the environment and feminism. The entire novel severs as a good example of ecological feminism.  The narrator experiences transcedence in nature form the conscious to the unconscious part of her mind.  It is like a female bildsungsroman, the immaturity to maturity or death to life.  The novel unites the two dualities of feminine world with nature and masculine world with separation from nature.  The narrator non-violently protests the male-dominated society and wishes to maintain a cordial relationship between man and woman.

WORKS CITED

Atwood, Margaret.  Surfacing. London: ViragoPress,2009.

Beauvoir, Simonde.  The Second Sex. Tr. Edited by H.M. Parshley. Penguin Books, 1949.

Kelly, Petra, “Women and Power” Ecofeminsm: Women, Culture, Nature. Ed Karen  J.Warren Bloomington and indianpolis : Indiana University press, 1984.

Joyce , Nelson “Speaking the unspeakable”, Canadian Forum, March 1990.

Wimsatt, Margaret, “ Surfacing’ Commonwealth, 7 Sept, 1973.