A Study of Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea from the Perspective of Ecofeminism

Growing out of an academic and activist sensitivity towards the analogous exploitation of nature and women, ecofeminism has gained widespread recognition and popularity across disciplines since the last decades of the 20th century. Condemnation of dualistic constructions, fostering the violation of the rights of women and nature is the central argument put forward by ecofeminism which is unwaveringly committed to revealing the anthropocentric and patriarchal ideologies as conjoint systems of oppression and subjugation. A link to ecofeminism can be found in Henrik Ibsen’s play, The Lady from the Sea (1888). Accordingly, the sea plays a key role in governing the lives of individuals like how the central character, Ellida’s social alienation from the people around her is juxtaposed with her physical and psychological intimacy with the sea. This study is anchored on elucidating Ibsen’s play from an ecofeminist viewpoint by drawing together Ellida’s patriarchal oppression in her marriage with the brutal exploitation of nature, squandered by humans whose anthropocentric misconceptions and consumerist concerns disallow them to perceive nature as a living organism. An ecofeminist approach to The Lady from the Sea will provide a better insight into the play’s consolidation of the gender issue with environmental deterioration as two inextricably linked problems.

Keywords:

The Lady from the Sea, ecofeminism, nature, sea pollution,

PDF

___

Alaimo. S. (2000). Undomesticated ground: Recasting nature as feminist space. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. google scholar
Alaimo, S. (2008). “Trans-corporeal feminisms and the ethical space of nature.” In S. google scholar
Alaimo & S. Hekman (Eds.) Material feminisms (pp. 237-264). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. google scholar
Alaimo, S. (2010). Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. google scholar
Armbruster, K. (1998). “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight: A call for boundary-crossing in ecofeminist literary criticism.” In G. Gaard & P. D. Murphy (Eds.) Ecofeminist literary criticism: Theory, interpretation, pedagogy (97-122). Murphy Urbana: University of Illinois Press. google scholar
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. google scholar
Cuomo, C. J. (2001). Feminism and ecological communities: An ethic of flourishing. London: Routledge. google scholar
Diamond, C. (2017). “Four women in the woods: An ecofeminist look at the forest at home.” Comparative Drama, 5(1), 71-100. DOI: 10.1353/cdr.2017.0003 google scholar
Durbach, E. (1982). Ibsen the romantic: Analogues of paradise in the later plays. London: The Macmillan. google scholar
Estok, S. C. (2018). The Ecophobia hypothesis. New York: Routledge. google scholar Finney, G. (1994). “Ibsen and feminism.” In J. McFarland (Ed.). The Cambridge companion to Ibsen (pp. 89-105). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
Gaard, G. (2010). “Strategies for a cross-cultural ecofeminist literary criticism.” Ecozone I (I), 47-52. google scholar
Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. google scholar
Ibsen, H. (1978). The Lady From the Sea. In R. Fjelde (Trans., Int. and Ed.) Ibsen: The Complete Major Prose Plays (pp. 591-688). New York: Penguin. google scholar
Merchant, C. (1996). Earthcare: Women and the environment. New York: Routledge. google scholar
Mitten, D. & C. D’Amore. (2018). “The nature of body image: The relationship between women’s body image and physical activity in natural environments.” In D. A. Vakoch & S. Mickey. (Eds.). Women and nature: Beyond dualism in gender, body, and environment (pp. 96-116). London: Routledge. google scholar
Oppermann, S. (2013). “Feminist ecocriticism: A posthumanist direction in ecocritical trajectory.” In G. Gaard, S. C. Estok, & S. Oppermann. (Eds.). International Perspectives in Feminist Ecocriticism,19-36. New York: Routledge. google scholar
Plumwood, V. (1994). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London: Routledge. google scholar
Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental culture: The ecological crisis of reason. London: Routledge. google scholar
Sandilands, C. (1999). The good-natured feminist: Ecofeminism and the quest for democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. google scholar
Valera, L. (2018). “François d’Eaubonne and ecofeminism: Rediscovering the link between women and nature.” In D. A. Vakoch & S. Mickey. (Eds.). Women and nature: Beyond dualism in gender, body, and environment, 10-23. London: Routledge. google scholar
Warren, K. J. (2000). Ecofeminist philosophy: A western perspective on what it is and why it matters. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. google scholar
Zwart, H. (2015). “The call from afar: A Heideggerian -Lacanian rereading of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea.” Ibsen Studies 15 (2), 172-202. google scholar