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Ecofeminism in Bessie Head's When Rain Cloud Gathers and Helon Habila's Oil on Water
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: English Literature
Abstract
This paper interrogates Ecofeminism from comparative male and female perspectives. From an androcentric lens, Helon Habila?s Oil on Water (2010) foregrounds interlacing relationships of both nature and the female folk on the altar of commoditization, objectification and subjugation with strong focus on the impact of petrodollar on the Niger Delta environment and their women. On the other hand, Bessie Head?s When Rain Cloud Gather (1969) amidst other thematic preoccupation is first a pastoral novel that focuses on agrarian issues, land, drought, female plight, cultural practices and environmental issues. Both Habila and Head?s as novelists are noted for their strong political undertones but this essay focuses on the place of nature and women in the Nigerian and Botswana rural settings. The novels are comparatively juxtaposed showing Ecofeminist?s mappings as they heavily features ?agro-cultural? practices that seemingly suppresses nature and women. Head and Habila represent these female characters as ?Ecowarrior?, groomers, growers against an arid and a polluted landscape. Head?s debut novel anticipated it times in its depiction of ecocritical ideals, while Habila?s text, though portraying a different political and socio-cultural milieu attends to the continuous abuse of both the female and nature in patriarchal societies. The essay uses Ecofeminism as a theoretical framework in presenting cultural issues that are tendentiously repetitive motif of both nature and women. The essay also presents nature as unfathomable, aggressive and indifferent. The paper sums that Habila and Head?s portrayal of women differs. Head?s women expresses female power through collective formidability in spite of their squalid experiences of aridity but Habila?s women though strong, are portrayed as manipulative and manipulated. Finally, this paper appeals those cultural practices that appear to destroy nature and shackle women should be strongly reconsidered and curtailed if not totally abhorred.
References
[1] Bures, Frank. “Everything follows: An interview with HelonHabila”. Retrieved from www.pw.org. (2013, September 21). Retrieval Date 5th December, 2023.
[2] Diamond, Irene, and Orenstein Gloria Freeman (eds) Reweaving the World: the Emergence of Ecofeminism. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990.
[3] Gaard, Greta, Gaard, Claire and Dunphy Patrick. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagody. Illinois: University of Illlinois, 2018.
[4] Gaard, Greta. (1993). Living interconnections with animals and nature. In G. Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (pp. 1-12). Temple University Press.
[5] Gray, Stephen. “Introduction”. In Bessie Head. When Rain Cloud Gather. London: Heinemann, 2008.
[6] Habila, Helon. Oil on Water. Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books. 2010
[7] Head, Bessie. When Rain Cloud Gather. London: Heinemann, 2008.
[8] King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology”. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism. Ed. Judith Plant. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1989.
[9] Michael, Nigusand Daniel, Abiye. “Ecofeminist Issues in Helon Habila’s Novel Oil on Water”. International Journal of Language and Literary Studies. 4(2).205-222. http://doi.org/ 10.36892/ijlls.v4i2.806. 2022.
[10] Omagu, Steve U. “Little Words, Big Ideas: Social Realism in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water. In Veritas Journal of Humanities (1) 1. (20-33)
[11] Seingier, Stephanie.“Coping with Alienation and Attaining Psychic Wholeness in the Novels of Bessie Head: When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru and A Question of Power and the Realisms of the Southern African societies of Botswana” Unpublished Thesis, Universite Laval, Laval Quebec.
[12] Starhawk. “Power, Authority, and Mystery: Ecofeminism and Earth-Based Spirituality”. Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism. Ed. Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein. San Francisco: Sierra Books, 1990.
How to cite this paper
@article{1705632,
author = {Paul Okun, Steve Omagu, Uchenna Eze},
title = {Ecofeminism in Bessie Head's When Rain Cloud Gathers and Helon Habila's Oil on Water},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2024},
volume = {7},
number = {9},
pages = {277-287},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1705632.pdf},
abstract = {This paper interrogates Ecofeminism from comparative male and female perspectives. From an androcentric lens, Helon Habila?s Oil on Water (2010) foregrounds interlacing relationships of both nature and the female folk on the altar of commoditization, objectification and subjugation with strong focus on the impact of petrodollar on the Niger Delta environment and their women. On the other hand, Bessie Head?s When Rain Cloud Gather (1969) amidst other thematic preoccupation is first a pastoral novel that focuses on agrarian issues, land, drought, female plight, cultural practices and environmental issues. Both Habila and Head?s as novelists are noted for their strong political undertones but this essay focuses on the place of nature and women in the Nigerian and Botswana rural settings. The novels are comparatively juxtaposed showing Ecofeminist?s mappings as they heavily features ?agro-cultural? practices that seemingly suppresses nature and women. Head and Habila represent these female characters as ?Ecowarrior?, groomers, growers against an arid and a polluted landscape. Head?s debut novel anticipated it times in its depiction of ecocritical ideals, while Habila?s text, though portraying a different political and socio-cultural milieu attends to the continuous abuse of both the female and nature in patriarchal societies. The essay uses Ecofeminism as a theoretical framework in presenting cultural issues that are tendentiously repetitive motif of both nature and women. The essay also presents nature as unfathomable, aggressive and indifferent. The paper sums that Habila and Head?s portrayal of women differs. Head?s women expresses female power through collective formidability in spite of their squalid experiences of aridity but Habila?s women though strong, are portrayed as manipulative and manipulated. Finally, this paper appeals those cultural practices that appear to destroy nature and shackle women should be strongly reconsidered and curtailed if not totally abhorred.},
month = {March},
}