EXPLORING FEMALE IDENTITY: AN ECOFEMINIST READING OF BARBARA KINGSOLVER’S PRODIGAL SUMMER

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and a short story writer. Kingsolver’s works often focus on topics such as social justice, biodiversity and the interaction and conflict between humans and the ecosystems in which they live. She infuses her writings with a strong sense of family, relationships and community. The novel titled Prodigal Summer was published in the year 2000. It tells the story of a small town in Appalachia during a single, humid summer. It weaves three stories of love, loss and family that unfold against the backdrop of lush wilderness of Kentucky mountains. The protagonists in the novel often face predicaments, but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. The paper intents to explore an ecofeminist reading of the novel, Prodigal Summer. It makes an attempt to perceive the mutual connection between women and nature as the writer portrays. It also enquires into the presence of interconnection between human and non-human in the novel. Discussions on coyotes, moths and chestnuts invariably take place in the story. Kingsolver conveys the need for preserving all these species through the different stories in the novel. She attempts to establish the fact that every living and nonliving thing is interconnected.

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