Theda Wrede

Myth and Environment in Recent Southwestern Literature (eBook, ePUB)

Healing Narratives

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The romantic perception of the American Southwest as a wild and dangerous frontier where heroic settlers prove their endurance has often responded to a common human desire to escape from the pressures of civilization and experience an "authentic" relationship with nature. This idealized notion about life in the Southwest, however, has contributed the subjugation of the indigenous populations and the natural world while helping rationalize the conquest of both. In Myth and Environment in Recent Southwestern Literature, Theda Wrede brings contemporary Southwestern American literature under the microscope to examine the ways in which the mythic narrative has influenced attitudes toward the land in the region. Focusing on popular novels by Corrmac McCarthy, Barbara Kingsolver, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Denise Chávez, Wrede explores the psychology behind the myth and discusses the ways in which the four authors deploy the mythic narrative, interrogate its validity, and offer visions for alternative modes of inhabiting the Southwest. In combining ideas from a culturally sensitive ecofeminist theory, psychoanalysis, postcolonial studies, and literary studies, the study offers an innovative conceptual framework for discussions about environmental responsibility in the twenty-first century. Finally, it also encourages its readers to partake in the process of mythogenesis by imagining "sustainable" narratives to help rescue the promise of the Southwest for the new millennium.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 191
• Erscheinungstermin: 10. April 2014
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780739184967
• Artikelnr.: 41284048

Autorenporträt

Theda Wrede is associate professor at Dixie State University.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The Myth and
Contemporary Reappraisals of the Southwest Chapter Two: Renewal and
Regression in Cormac McCarthy's Western All the Pretty Horses Chapter
Three: Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams: Ecofeminist Subversion of
Western Myth Chapter Four: "It's a Matter of Transitions": Nature, Self,
and Community in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony Chapter Five: Liminality in
Denise Chávez's The Last of the Menu Girls: Mapping Female Landscapes on
the Border Conclusion Works Cited Index About the author