Ecogothic

One of the most trenchant critiques of Western dualistic thought is provided by the Australian feminist philosopher, Val Plumwood. Though Plumwood's historical perspective provides for a deep lineage, including Platonic thought, she is conscious of the ways in which such structural dualisms have underwritten what she calls ‘the logic of modernity. … [which] has treated the human/nature relation as a dualism’ (2–3). Key considerations for Plumwood are the mechanisms through which unequal and exploitative hierarchies of value are sustained by, and sustain, a patriarchal capitalistic macrostructure. These are equally evident in Felix Guattari's earlier, The Three Ecologies: ‘[e]cology in my sense questions the whole of subjectivity and capitalistic power formations’ (52). Guattari's point invokes the long-held dyadic conceptualisation of human and non-human relations, a legacy of Cartesian dualism that underwrites the baleful hierarchical nature of a paternalistic Western mind-set. But in suggesting a more holistic and integrated notion of ecological subjectivity, Guattari does not propose a reductive negation of species difference, rather his contention is for a full acknowledgement of common ground – in figurative and literal senses.

The kinds of dyadism noted by Plumwood and Guattari are familiar from the formal patternings and thematic preoccupations of the Gothic genre, a point alluded to by Fred Botting: ‘Nature appears hostile, untamed and threatening: darkness, obscurity, and barely contained negative energy reinforce atmospheres of disorientation and fear’ (4). Just as ‘nature’ was frequently conceived of within the Romantic lyric tradition as sublime and salvific, Gothicised topographies served as correlatives of fevered subjectivities and irredeemable otherness.