MOTHERHOOD AND THE EARTH: AN ECOFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF REPRODUCTIVE ANXIETY IN LOUISE ERDRICH'S TRACKS (1988)

Abstract

This paper examines Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks (1988) focusing on motherhood and the earth through the lens of ecofeminism. It explores the loss of land and how it is connected to fear, pain, pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood among the Anishinaabe people in the novel. Ecofeminism argues that men's treatment of women has been similar to their treatment and exploitation of nature. The thinking processes of Nature and Women have been exploited, manipulated, and suppressed. Fleur Pillager is the character, the land, and the mother in Tracks. Her body also suffers the agony, fear, and loss of childbirth by the time her land is being taken away from her by white loggers and government men. It is the same with Pauline Puyat, who has a fear of her own body and who attempts to reject her own daughter. This paper examines the novel in detail and locates examples of this connection between land and body in the text. The theory applied in the study is ecofeminism, strongly supported by the work of Vandana Shiva, which examines the impact of male-dominant control systems on women and nature. The paper concludes that Erdrich does not depict motherhood as "soft and easy. Instead, she makes it a part of anxiety, risk, and survival - like the land itself, which is being attacked. This reading offers another perspective on the study of Tracks: beyond the fear of losing land, it includes the fear of losing one's own body and child. The conclusions draw the reader and scholar to a deeper understanding of the impact of colonial history on land and water, as well as the most private aspects of a woman's life: her body and her motherhood.