1. There's no place like 'home' : displacement, domestic space, and ecological consciousness in the work of Elizabeth Gaskell and Susanna Moodie
- Author
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Mitchell, Elise and Mitchell, Elise
- Abstract
This doctoral dissertation, There’s No Place Like “Home”: Displacement, Domestic Space, and Ecological Consciousness in Nineteenth Century British and Canadian Women’s Writing, offers a reconsideration of Martin Heidegger’s controversial concepts of dwelling and Being (Dasein) in ecocriticism, and, subsequently a rereading of nineteenth century women’s writing through an ecocritical lens. It examines the construction of domestic space in relation to the nonhuman through the work of Susanna Moodie and Elizabeth Gaskell. It posits that their writing addresses the identity and nature of the nonhuman in a way that is consistent with certain aspects of contemporary ecocriticism. First, the theoretical framework of this study brings Dasein into conversation with two theorists that question a hermetic, place-oriented domesticity. Gaston Bachelard’s indoor-outdoor dialectic highlights the dependence of the built environment’s identity on the nonhuman, while Susan Fraiman’s shelter writing de-genders the creation of domestic space and resituates it at the margins of human experience. The result of this conversation is a model of analysis that juxtaposes an uncomfortable Dasein that encompasses the unlimited and unknowable with the human desire for control and contact with the nonhuman. The ecocritical dimension of Moodie and Gaskell is their marginality, both social and geographical. Their writing about domesticity and home encompasses both a yearning towards and a subversion of Victorian middle-class ideals. The discomfort of this conflicting mindset means that the domestic is decentred and displaced; their coming-of-age narratives mean seeing beyond dilute Romantic conceptualizations of “Nature” and “Home” but not abandoning them completely. A home that facilitates dwelling—a shelter, in other words—must be imperfect and precarious, balancing Victorian middle-class ideals with a mutually recognized relationship with the nonhuman world. A shelter’s interstitial spaces permi
- Published
- 2016