Power and Environmentalism in Recent Writings by Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alice Walker, and Terry Tempest Williams

Abstract

Recent literature by Kingsolver, Le Guin, Walker, and Williams is environmentalist (activist). The four authors make structural critiques of American civilization. In McDowell's analysis of their works, McDowell extends Trask's psychoanalytic principles of Thanatos (Death-principle) and the Feminist Eros (Love and Life-principle) and applies them to human relations with other humans and the natural world. Harmful aspects of the dominant system arise from Thanatos (fear, violence, domination, and alienation). The authors prescribe a counter conceptual path of the Feminist Eros (life, love, engaged-relation, power-with, peace, and creativity). Linked to the Feminist Eros is the systems metaphor of The Animal which invests aspects of The Animal with sacredness, necessitating ethics. The writers call for political activism and lifestyle changes determined by the Feminist Eros to counter Thanatos tendencies and systems. They hope for a civilization based on a Feminist Eros vision.