Interpretation of Ecological Feminism#8212;A Case Study of Tess of the D'Urbervilles 生态女性主义解读#8212;以《德伯家的苔丝》为例 1. Introduction Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. He made great achievements in literary field and was described as ”the greatest tragedy master in English novels ”by Virginia Woolf. Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840. His father, also named Hardy, was an independent bricklayer who loved music. His mother attached importance to knowledge and education and was good at telling folktales. As their eldest son, Hardy was influenced by his parents from the very young age. Thomas Hardy is famous for his characteristic and environmental novels, which is called Wessex novels. Wessex is one of seven kingdoms which were established by the Anglo-Saxon people on the British Isles from the 6th to the 9th centuries. Hardy#8217;s hometown, Dorset, is the prototype of Wessex. The name, Wessex, obviously gave readers a feeling of historical sensation. The name, also, endowed readers historical charm which made readers familiar to Hardy#8217;s novels. Wessex novels usually care about figures#8217; trait and living surroundings, concerning the miserable fate of the broken famers and the unexpected and massive changes in fields of society, economy, ethics and customs in England. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of Hardy#8217;s most splendid and mature works. It is also typical one of Wessex novels which arouse readers#8217; attention. This essay will focus on the interpretation of ecological feminism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, exploring the ecofeminism from both nature and social aspects. 1.1 Research Background 1.1.1 About the Author Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 #8211; 11 January 1928) was regarded as an outstanding English novelist as well as a poet, whose works mainly focused on regionalism, tragedy and religious rebellion. As a Victorian realist following George Eliot, he was influenced in his novels by combining tragedy and realism. As a poet following William Wordsworth, he was influenced in his poetry by Romanticism. He was highly critical of ancient conventions and regimes in Victorian society, so he protested against them and therefore saw some repercussions from doing this. His early and mid-term creations were mainly novels, inheriting and carrying forward the literary traditions of the Victorian era. Initially, Hardy made a name of himself as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Most of his novels are meaningful and far-reaching which deserve pondering over again and again. As time went by, his creations have laid an immortal position for him in world literature, making him a well-known figure standing with world-renowned writers such as Shakespeare and Dickens. He was once known as "Shakespeare in English novels." Roads to distinction are always rough and rugged. Although Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure earned a good remark in the later years, at the very start they were criticized severely. Tess of the D'Urbervilles was accused of being unethical after being published, and Jude the Obscure incurred a more intense attack when it first came out. Under such huge pressure, Hardy had no insistence to carry on creating novels. He started to turn his minds to poetry. Hardy#8217;s poetry in his later years opened the door for the 20th century British literature. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and considered himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed Hardy as a mentor spoke highly of his poetry. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Although Thomas Hardy lost his heart in novels, he indeed made great success in this field. In the nineteenth century, Hardy was a male writer who equipped a female consciousness. This unique perspective became his representativeness. In his works, women and nature is one of his main points which reveal ecological feminism. 1.1.2 About the Novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a novel by Thomas Hardy. In Hardy#8217;s fictions we can often see the heroine, a woman from the bottom of society, kind-hearted, laborious and brave. Hardy preferred to praise them with the pen, full of care and love. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a representative novel of his works. In this novel, Hardy describes the tragic fate of individual peasants and handicraftsmen in the Wessex region under the impact of industrial civilization. It tells that Tess, a poor and beautiful milkmaid, lost her virginity to her Cousin Alec D'Urbervilles because of innocence and ignorance. Alec D'Urbervilles was a wealthy and tyrant person, under his control Tess went through spiritual and material suffering badly. Later Tess fell in love with pastor#8217;s son, Angel Clare. However, when Tess confessed to her husband on the wedding night, Clare refused to forgive her and went to Brazil. A few years later, Tess met Alec again, and Tess had to cohabit with him because of her family's poverty. Soon Claire came back from abroad and expressed regret to her. Tess readmitted Clare and angrily killed Alec. Finally she was arrested and hanged. This story first came off the press in a censored and serialized version, then was turned into book form in three volumes in 1891, and revised into a single volume in the next year. Although now considered a distinguished nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's fictional masterpiece, However, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed comments when it first came out, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England. Many years later the novel gained great appreciation. Tess has characteristics which surpass the traditional virtues and the great power of the human nature and soul. This is why Tess becomes one of the most attractive female images in literary field. Nobel Prize winner Claude Simon once said that Tess of the d'Urbervilles was a jewel of British literature in the 19th century, which laid the foundation for Hardy's literature in Britain and the world. Even though more than 100 years has passed, Tess was still established in the world literature gallery. As a woman, the feminism in Tess worth exploring; as a story, the ecological feminism contained in the book is worthwhile digging. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Ecological Feminism 2.1.1 The definition of ecological feminism Ecological feminism says that women are closer to nature than men are. This closeness, therefore, makes women more regardful and caring towards their environment. Ecological feminism is one of the important genres of both feminist research and ecological philosophy. It takes gender perspective for an entry point, making its way into ecological problems, at the same time pointing out that male domination and human rule over nature are based on the patriarchal logic. So it criticizes the male chauvinism. Since the 1970s, many feminists, especially ecological feminists, have endorsed the idea that environmental issues are one of the most significant problems that feminism has to solve. They believe that there exists a relationship between the oppression of women and the degradation of nature. They believe that the social mentality which leads to oppression and dominance of women would directly lead to the misuse of the Earth's environment. 2.1.2 The development of ecological feminism Feminism, also known as Feminine liberation, is a range of social movements, political movements，social theory and ideologies that share a common goal, that is to end up sexism, sexual exploitation, and sexual oppression and promote gender equality. This consists of seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men. The early feminists and original feminist movements which is called the first-wave gained women the right of education and the right to vote, and after that women argue for being independent and won the right to work. Later years in the 18th century, when Olimppe de Gouges, the women's leader of the French Revolution published the Declaration of Women's Rights and Women's Citizenship, the feminist movement had already begun. From English writer Mary Wollstonecraft to American writer Betty Friedan, representative women are of a wide range. They all expressed their opinions on feminism and advocated it diffusely. Apart from representative women, numerous feminist movements and ideologies have also developed over the years and represented different viewpoints and aims. Amazon feminism, Socialist feminism, Sex-positive feminism are all genres rising from Feminism. After the early 1960s, there came the second-wave and the third-wave. The second-wave puts great emphasis on how to let women balance between work and family. The following third-wave relates feminism to ecology movement and mixes them together. That#8217;s where the ecological feminism movement sprang up. The term was firstly coined by the French writer Franccedil;oise d'Eaubonne in her book Le F#233;minisme ou la Mort (1974). Nowadays there are a bunch of interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought, for example, ecofeminist art, ecofeminist theory and so on. In 1974, French feminist Francoise d#8217;Eaubonne appealed women to save the earth thorough her passage Le Feminisme ou la mort. In the article she foremost put forward the conception ”ecofeminism”, which also marked the beginning of Western Ecological Feminist Theory Research. Carolyn. Merchant was another typical representative who called on people to associate natural discrimination with gender association, meanwhile researching them under historical background of social politics and economic power. Amounts of representative women have greatly promoted ecological feminism and enriched the connotation of it. 2.2 Previous studies on Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a fabulous wessex novel written by Thomas Hardy, which has a significant status both in England and around the world. It has attracted lots of people#8217;s attention since its publication. As is known to us all, Hardy#8217;s fictions have greater vitality and everlasting appeal on which countless researchers have complimented. In many countries, especially in Europe and America, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles has been researched for more than a hundred years. Researches are mainly divided into two directions. The first is the origin of tragedy, the analysis of roles, translation techniques, the causes of Tess#8217;s destiny and so forth. For instance, The Apprehensive and Suppressed Soul of the Fallen Woman in Thomas Hardy#8217;s Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Noorbakhsh Hooti,2011)aims at scrutinizing the biased social norms, the unjust laws, the rotten ethics and the malicious morality standards which contribute to Tess#8217;s innocent crush through his essay. D.H.Lawrence regarded Tess as a new woman image and remarked that Tess ”knows she is herself incontrovertibly, and she knows that other people are not herself. This is a very rare quality, even in a woman”. (Elledge, 1979: 406) Actually in China there also exist researchers who are very interested in Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Researching essays about this novel are in an endless stream. Some researchers concentrated on the tragic color of the book. The Causes of Tess#8217;s Tragedy (Kun Yu，2011) explored Tess#8217;s tragic fate as the result of industrialization and patriarchal society. Some other people researched the translation technique. The Constructive Analysis about the Two Chinese Versions of Tess Of the D#8217;Urbervilles in the Perspective of Adaptation Theory(Liu Hui，2013) compared two different Chinese versions of Tess of the D#8217;Urbervilles to demonstrate the significance of using Adaptation Theory in translation. The role interpretation also becomes a main researching point. The Character Development of Angel Clare in Tess of the D#8217;Urbervilles (Yongliang Huang,2009) focused on the role Angel, showing the effects of Angel Clare#8217;s experiences on the development of his character. 2.3 Need for the study While enjoying the convenience that science and technology bring about, we are also confronted with the environmental problems. Nowadays, people gradually realize that what they do to the environment has led to a series of problems such as water and soil erosion, flash flood, species extinction and so on. These issues have aroused global concern and soon there comes the conception ”ecology”. In recent years literal workers have shifted their attention to the ecocriticism and started to study relationship between literature and nature. They come to realize that environment is a feminism issue because nature has similar fate with women. Therefore women are the first to observe the dreadful consequence of environmental pollution and women are the most important strength to prevent the harmful actions. By connecting the nature with women, a feminist writing of nature is encouraged to criticize the male rule over the nature. In turn, the feminist writing endowed readers a more obvious view of women#8217;s fate through the description of environment. Some scholars have already made some researches on feminism, bSut few of them can cut into the ecological feminism. These few scholars usually put emphasis on relationship between nature, social, culture and ecofeminism. Seldom can they concern about ecofeminism from a gender view. Also, related English essays are still in a low yield. Clearly, seldom amount of people can truly realize the meaning of ecological feminism and the function it plays in the fiction. Therefore, it is a new realm of study to explore Tess of the D'Urbervilles from the ecological feminism point of view, especially from the gender view, to give more people great insight to the novel. Hence the ecofeminism interpretation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles helps us better understand the environment, the surroundings, the association between figures and environment, and the fate of figures. So the theory of ecofeminism will be applied to the interpretation of Thomas Hardy#8217;s wonderful work－－Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Works cited Elisabeth，Rallo-Ditche. Nature and Culture in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles Nature et culture dans Tess d#8217;Urberville de Thomas Hardy. OALib Journal，2011. Chi，Haiyan. [池海燕]，浅析《德伯家的苔丝》中的生态人文主义[D]. 山西大学，2011. Dai，jiong. [戴炯]，An Interpretation of Thomas Hardy's Eco-feminism in Tess of the D'urbervilles[D]. 西安外国语大学，2014. Guo，Cheng. [郭诚]，从生态女性主义角度浅析《德伯家的苔丝》与《我的安东尼娅》[J].广东蚕业，2018,52(07):76 78. Hui，Feifei. 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