ECOFEMINIST DISCOURSE IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S MADDADDAM TRILOGY: ANALYZING INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN GENDER OPPRESSION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION

Abstract

This paper examines the ecofeminist concepts in the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood and consists of Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013). Based on the concepts of Val Plumwood regarding dual thinking and ecological feminism, this paper demonstrates how in her fiction works women and nature are exploited in the same way in patriarchal capitalist cultures. The study employs the detailed reading and feminist criticism to view the way the books demonstrate the interconnected oppressions in the manner the stories are constructed, both in terms of the characters and themes. The results demonstrate that Atwood adopts a dystopian future world to condemn modern environmental destruction and gender violence as one of the outcomes of Western thought separating culture and nature and men and women. The paper identifies that relatively limited literature has focused on the way works by Atwood develop an ecofeminist critique of biotech capitalism, and indicates how human beings can be related to nature differently. The findings indicate that the main characters of the books, or rather the women characters, particularly Toby and Ren, exhibit ecofeminist opposition in the sense that they learn about nature, create community, and denounce a human-based hierarchical structure. This piece contributes to the growing literature on climate narratives and ecofeminist book, and it provides hints concerning how speculative fiction can become a site of environmental activism and feminist critique.