Re-visioning the Utopia in Marge Piercy's 'Woman on the Edge of Time:' An Ecofeminist Reading
| Autor: | Jei-Wei Chang, 張捷威 |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2004 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 92 This thesis attempts to speak for problematizing the system of binary hierarchical oppositions underlying Western thought by offering an ecofeminist reading of Marge Piercy’s first science fiction Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), which justifies the writer’s pursuit of an ecofeminist utopian society. Being a North American woman writer, Piercy tries to use multiple narrative strategies to dismantle such hierarchical dualistic thinking in a portrayal of the utopian society, Mattapoisett. To aim at this purpose, I will divide this book into four chapters. The first chapter begins to give an overview of both the author and the text and context of this novel. Since I define this novel as an ecofeminist literary work, I first introduce theories of ecological feminism in combination with the brief historical survey of science fiction. The exploration of theories here paves the way for the textual analysis in subsequent discussion. Chapter Two will be dedicated to discussing how the writer portrays the utopian and dystopian societies to express her implied ecofeminist concerns of decentering the binary oppositions in Western cultures and enabling the futurist diversified ecological-balanced society between human beings and nature (natural resources). Here, I will focus on Piercy’s intentions on certain narrative strategies, which will be exemplified with details and are proven to be ambivalent yet critical. The third chapter discusses the keen debates both on the ultimate dystopian scenario in the fifteenth chapter and on the open-endedness of this text, which are revealed and symbolized through the heroine’s telepathic travel shifting between the dystopian present and the utopian future. Reasons for this strategy are elaborated in this chapter. Finally, my study into Marge Piercy''s Woman on the Edge of Time proposes in the concluding chapter that the textual analysis and her narrative strategies reinforce the writer’s anti-dualistic approach to creating an ecofeminist utopia. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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