Environment: Culture, Nature, and Women in Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out

This paper focuses on Virginia Woolf’s (1888-1942) The Voyage Out (1915) through the ecocriticaltheories of Val Plumwood. Reconnecting with nature is increasingly recognized as a positivecontribution to health and well-being. In Western culture, women are associated with nature and theyare devaluated; on the contrary, men are identified with culture. Culture is separated from nature;likewise, the male is separated from the female and the male is superior to her. Gender acts as anorganizing principle for a society due to the cultural meanings by which male or female comes intoexistence. Therefore, it is the cultural patterns in a society which affirm the legitimacy of planninginitiatives for gender roles. In the novel, Woolf expresses her idea implicitly about the position ofhuman beings who consider themselves in a higher rank of any other living beings or the essence ofexistence in terms of anthropocentric culture. Woolf implies that women, nature, and environment areregarded as the Other and culture is associated with men to bring destruction to environment andcreate a wide gap between males and environment. The main character Rachel Vinrace is caught inthe anthropocentric world built by men and culture in which women are lower than men. Rachel triesto save herself by being close to nature

Environment: Culture, Nature, and Women in Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out Keywords:

Anthropocentrism , Culture , Environment , women , Nature.