“Can a wild stream and a girl be one and the same?”: An Ecofeminist Reading of Select Short Stories from Nandini Sahu’s Shedding the Metaphors

Authors

  • Nitika Gulati Ph.D. Scholar Department of English, University of Delhi, Delhi, India.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56062/gtrs.2023.2.02.284

Keywords:

Ecofeminism, short stories, oppression, relationality, Nandini Sahu.

Abstract

This paper attempts an ecofeminist reading of select short stories from Nandini Sahu’s Shedding the Metaphors (2023). The stories explore the complexities of human emotions, relationships, and experiences and are diverse in their themes of love, loss and self-discovery, where the personal frequently intersects with the political. They contain imagery and symbolism from the natural world to provide the setting and allegorize the distinct experience of being a woman in a patriarchal world and assert the interconnectedness of all beings. Most of the stories have female protagonists whose journey can be traced to draw attention to patriarchy’s exploitation of women as well as nature. In some of them, gender intersects with issues like sexuality and class to demonstrate how systems of oppression mutually reinforce each other. While connecting feminism with ecology, ecofeminism contends that women's oppression and ecological degradation are outcomes of patriarchy and capitalism. However, ecofeminism is not restricted to connections between nature and women, but it is about the relationality and interconnectedness of all beings, hence arguing against all systems of domination. human beings. This paper will attempt an ecofeminist reading of select short stories from Sahu’s collection. Close textual analysis will expose the underlying oppression of women and the environment and how they are intertwined. Such a reading will be geared towards making a call for dismantling all hierarchies and fostering universal sympathy for all beings, human or non-human.

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References

Works Cited:

Adams, Carol. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Continuum, 1990.

Gaard, Greta. “Toward a Queer Ecofeminism.” New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality, and Activism, edited by Rachel Stein, Rutgers UP, 2004, pp.21-44.

Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. Zed Books, 2014.

Murphy, Patrick D. Introduction. Literature and Ecofeminism: Intersectional and International Voices, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch and Sam Mickey, Routledge, 2018, pp. 1-8.

Papanek, Hanna. “To Each Less Than She Needs, From Each More Than She Can Do: Allocations, Entitlements and Value.” Persistent Inqeualities: Women and World Development, edited by Irene Tinker, Oxford, 1990, pp. 162-83.

Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.

Sahu, Nandini. Shedding the Metaphors. Black Eagle Books, 2023.

Warren, Karen J. “Feminism and Ecology: Making Connections.” Environmental Ethics, vol. 9, no. 1, 1987, pp. 3–21.

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Published

2023-05-25

How to Cite

Nitika Gulati. (2023). “Can a wild stream and a girl be one and the same?”: An Ecofeminist Reading of Select Short Stories from Nandini Sahu’s Shedding the Metaphors. Creative Saplings, 2(02), 12–23. https://doi.org/10.56062/gtrs.2023.2.02.284