ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

Ecofeminism in the Writings of Jane Austen

Generally, read as a story of courtship, manners, property and social morality, Jane Austen novels nonetheless have a certain but significant ecological awareness. In this paper, titled, Ecofeminism in the Writings of Jane Austen, we will look at how the fictional world of Jane Austen is connected to the lives of women and to land, nature, domestic space, and ownership. Ecofeminism asserts that oppression of women and exploitation of nature are usually caused by the same patriarchal systems. This relationship is followed through treatment of estates, landscapes, gardens, houses, and rural environments all of which determine female identity and social possibility. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, among others, demonstrate that nature is not simply a decorative subject but a moral and social space within which women negotiate freedom, restraint, desire, and dignity. The paper looks at the way Austen introduces the theme of women as being highly influenced by issues of property, inheritance, enclosure, class privilege and the confinement beyond four walls. Her heroines also traverse gardens, parks, drawing rooms and country estates that are both beautiful and controlled. The walk taken by Elizabeth Bennet through countryside, the sensitivity of Fanny Price to the moral ambiance of Mansfield, and the emotional responsiveness of Marianne Dashwood to natural landscapes, all indicate that nature is a silent companion to female experience. Simultaneously, Austen reveals the similarity of land and women as being prized in systems of ownership, marriage and exchange. Austen challenges a culture whereby the safety of women would be pegged on property they do not have much control over. This way, her fiction foreshadows ecofeminist issues by demonstrating that the health of human relations, gender justice, and ethical relations with place are interdependent. The paper arrives at the conclusion that the works of Austen provide a literary basis at the early years of literature to understand the connection between feminine subjectivity and ecological consciousness. Keywords: Ecofeminism, Jane Austen, women and nature, patriarchy, property, landscape