Ecofeminist Resistance and the Politics of Gender, Nature, and Power in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer

Abstract

Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer (2000) presents an intricate relationship between gender, ecological interdependence, agricultural practices, sexuality, and systems of power. Set in the Appalachian mountains of Zebulon County, the novel brings together three interconnected narratives centered on Deanna Wolfe, Lusa Maluf Landowski, and Nannie Rawley. Although the three women occupy different social positions and possess different forms of knowledge, each challenges dominant assumptions about women's roles and humanity's relationship with the natural environment. This article examines Prodigal Summer through an ecofeminist framework, focusing particularly on the intersections of gender, nature, and power and on the ways female characters transform ecological knowledge into resistance. Drawing on Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, Ynestra King, and contemporary ecofeminist scholarship, the study argues that Kingsolver challenges the parallel domination of women and nature by patriarchal, agricultural, and economic systems. Deanna's defense of predators challenges masculine hunting culture and conventional ideas of femininity; Lusa's rejection of pesticides and her development of alternative agricultural practices challenge environmentally destructive farming and patriarchal ownership of land; and Nannie's defense of biodiversity challenges technological agriculture and monocultural thinking. The novel ultimately proposes an ethics of interdependence in which ecological diversity, gender diversity, and social diversity are mutually reinforcing. Recent scholarship has continued to identify Prodigal Summer as an important ecofeminist text, particularly through its treatment of organic farming, biodiversity, women’s ecological knowledge, and environmental consciousness.