Interconnection between Nature and Women: An Eco-feminist Reading of Devkota’s Shakuntala

Abstract

This research work explores the interconnection between nature and women in Devkota’s Shakuntala to understand how they are interlinked to each other in relation to the theoretical insight of ecofeminism. The concern to the nature-woman interrelationship and the way of treating nature and women in male centered society make the need for this research. As nature and women are the victims of patriarchal social structure, they face common suppression and oppression as a result of androcentric thoughts. The nature-women relationship has been scrutinized in the light of eco-feminist perspective: a theory that views nature and women as the feminine in patriarchal viewpoint. The research method consists of wide reviews of relevant literatures collected from different scholarly journals and books. The findings from this research show that nature and women are the entities which possess similar attributes on the ground of their oppression. Both nature and women exchange common qualities by womanizing nature and naturalizing women. The significance of such a bonding between nature and women helps to understand that they are interlinked as an important entity by sharing some common values. The conclusion of this research is that the environmental and feminist issues are equal at present. This can be well addressed by foregrounding the multiple voices of ecofeminist theorists who focus on the concern of nature-women interrelationship.