Nature, Caged Birds, and Constrained Women: An Ecocritical Feminist Reading of Angela Carter’s Story The Erl-King

AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 4, Number3. August  2020                                Pp.3-16
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol4no3.1

Full Paper PDF

 

Nature, Caged Birds, and Constrained Women: An Ecocritical Feminist Reading of Angela
Carter’s Story The Erl-King
 

Shadi S. Neimneh*
English Department, Faculty of Arts
Hashemite University
Zarqa , Jordan
Corresponding Author*

Halla A. Shureteh
English Department, Faculty of Arts
Hashemite University
Zarqa , Jordan

 

 

Abstract:
In their feminist and postmodern readings of Angela Carter’s fiction, critics have often eclipsed the presence of nature in her writings and the significance of non-human forms of life. This article addresses this critical gap, focusing on Carter’s employment of birds and the greenwood in her story The Erl-King as a metaphor for gender roles and power relations. Hence, the alliance between her ecopoetics and feminist vision forms a case of “ecofeminism.” In her defense of “minor” and oppressed forms of life, Carter makes her caged birds emblems of women imprisoned by patriarchy. Their liberation by the female narrator at the end of the story is not only a sign of resistance but also an indication of the essential harmony and mutual strength of women and nature. Surprisingly though, and before this unexpected end in which the narrator strangles the Erl-King with his own hair, nature is made complicit in the oppression of women rather than simply liberating. This can be explained through Carter’s ambivalent brand of postmodern feminist poetics that rejects fixities and conventional binaries, unsettling the patriarchal myth that women are merely close to nature. Thus, Carter subverts feminist logic by exposing how women and nature are not only closely allied or opposed to patriarchy but also complicit in their own oppression. Moreover, she subverts the woman/nature dichotomy by making the Erl-King the epitome of a harmonious life in nature rather than plainly defending women as expected in feminist texts. Carter deconstructs established myths and conventional gender roles, accounting for subtle female desire in the process of articulating feminist poetics via nature.
Keywords: Carter, ecocriticism, The Erl-King, feminism, caged birds, imprisonment, nature/woman

Cite as:  Neimneh, S.S., &  Shureteh, H. A.  (2020). Nature, Caged Birds, and Constrained Women: An Ecocritical Feminist Reading of Angela Carter’s Story The Erl-King. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 4 (3)3-16.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol4no3.1

References

Angelou, M. (1993). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Black Woman Tells of Her Painful      Growth to Maturity. New York: Bantam.

Angelou, M. (1983). Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing. New York: Random House.

Bottom of Form

Arikan, S. (2016). Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber: A Feminist Stylistic Approach. Firat

University Journal of Social Sciences, 26(2), 117-130.

Barry, P. (2009). Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (3rd ed.). Manchester: Manchester UP.

Bennett, A. & Royle, N. (2009). An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (4th ed.).

Harlow: Longman.

Brooke, P. (2004). Lyons and Tigers and Wolves—Oh My! Revisionary Fairy Tales in the Work  of  Angela Carter. Critical Survey, 16 (1), 67-88.

Carson, R. (1962). Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Carter, A. (1995). The Bloody Chamber. Burning Your Boat: The Collected Short Stories. New    York:  Penguin. E-Text.

Carter, A. (1995). The Erl-King. Burning Your Boat: The Collected Short Stories. New York: Penguin. E-Text.

Carter, A. (1985). Nights at the Circus. New York: Viking.

De Beauvoir, S. (2001). From The Second Sex. In V. Leitch (ed.), The Norton Anthology of  Theory and Criticism (1406-1414). New York: Norton.

Derrida, J. (2008). The Animal That Therefore I Am. (D. Wills, trans.). In M. Marie-Louise (ed.). New York:   Fordham UP.

Dobie, A. B. (2012). Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism (3rd International ed.).  Wadsworth, Cengage.

Gilman, C. P. (2003). The Yellow Wallpaper. In N. Baym (ed.), Norton Anthology of American    Literature 1865-1914 (6th ed., 832-844). New York: Norton Company.

Glaspell, S. (1993). A Jury of Her Peers. In L. Perrine & T. R. Arp (eds.), Literature:Structure,   Sound, and Sense (6th ed., 332-348). Fort Worth: Harcourt.

Glaspell, S. (1993). Trifles. In L. Perrine &   T. R. Arp, (eds.), Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense.   (6th ed., 870-880). Fort Worth: Harcourt.

Goethe, J. W. (1782). The Erl-King. (E Zeydel, 1955, trans.). Germanstories.vcu.edu

Huggan, G. & Tiffin, H. (2010). Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment.  London: Routledge.

Hutcheon, L. (2002). Postmodern Afterthoughts. Wascana Review, 37 (1), 5-12.

Jyothi, A. (2019). An Ecofeminist Reading of Select Poems of Dattatreya Ramachandra   Bendre/Da.      Ra. Bendre/Bendre. Language in India. 19 (5). Available from:              http://0g100ohn8.y.http.web.b.ebscohost.com.hu.proxy.coe-            elibrary.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=77bccd69-dd3a-4b90-8742-  74f44461fcfd%40sessionmgr101

Kingsolver, B. (1999). The Poisonwood Bible. New York: Harper Perennial.

Krifa, W. (2018). Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber: A Hermeneutic Perspective. International   Journal of Arts and Social Science, 1(4), 57-61. Available from:     www.ijassjournal.com

Macsiniuc, C. (2015). Sartorial Rhetoric and Gender Roles in Angela Carter’s The Bloody   Chamber. Meridian Critic, 24(1), 79-91.

Mellor, M. (1997). Feminism & Ecology. New York: New York University Press.

The One Year Bible: The Entire New International Version Arranged in 365 Daily Readings.   (2015). Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers.  Selden, R., et al. (2005). A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. (5th ed.). Harlow: Pearson.

Tremain, R. (2011). Sacred Country. London: Vintage Books.

Tyson, L. (2006). Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge,

Vakoch, D., ed. (2012). Feminist Ecocriticism: Environment, Women, and  Literature. Lanham,   MD: Lexington Books.