American Studies. In the preface and opening chapter of The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860, Annette Kolodny argues that a “psychosexual dynamic of a virgin paradise meant…that real flesh-and-blood women — at least metaphorically — were dispossessed of paradise.” Therefore the women who settled the American frontier “struggled to find some alternate set of images through which to make their own unique accommodation to the strange and sometimes forbidding New World landscape” (3). For women that image tended to be the garden (a real garden, not the Garden of Eden) as opposed to the favored male image of the virgin bride or nurturing mother. The upshot is that “men sought sexual and filial gratifications from the land, while women sought there the gratifications of home and family relations” (10).
In the remainder of The Land Before Her Kolodny explores how the garden and other images of “home and family relations” structured women’s writing about the frontier during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Does this fantasy structure persist in green culture today? I suspect so. Consider how blatantly Bambi appeals strongly to “the gratifications of home and family.” Can you think of other examples of green culture that fit Kolodny’s model?
Tuesday, February 3
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Yeah, I suppose that one only needs to sit through one day of daytime television programming to see who the advertising and programming content is directed at: women, and more specifically, mothers with families.
Though the "soap opera" and classic adds ("Calgon...Take Me Away") have become cleche and replaced by more sophisticated programming, the majority of talk shows (i.e. Ellen, Oprah, or Dr. Phil) still exist primarily to target this demographic of a stay-at-home mommy, or perhaps the successful upper-middle class woman with time on her hands... to do gardening.... or whatever. :0)
And while gardening may not seem as hot to the younger generation, it seems that my wife and her friends just cannot get enough of scrapbooking, which kinda seems to run in the same vein... It's kind of a contemporary craze, and all about organizing and beautifying home and hearth.
Well maybe the only thing that comes to mind right off bat would be a magazine, "Better Homes and Garden." I have seen very few of these magazines, but they didn't have a muscular men carrying an axe, with a freshly killed deer slung over his shoulder. They were very few men in general. They never said, "Women do this and your man will love you," but said try this and he will likely notice. The "he" means it can be gauged mostly towards a woman. They also offer advice many tips for a "person" that spends the day at the home, which in many contexts they just assume to be the woman of the house hold.
Yes, I believe that this fantasy exists in green culture today, because most women today are single with children trying to fulfill all the responsibilities.
The second example where a complete family, where a man and woman in today's society work together as it was done in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. However, the roles are different.
Today, we have to work together to fulfill our economic and financial needs. For the most part, many of us are conscientious on preserving and protecting our ecosystem from yesterday's waste and destruction.
D---
Kolodny’s model is still in play today with women that are middle-aged and older. The real garden has significance in woman of rural and less wealth communities. Where nature has, in American society, become another thing that can be brought or sold the flower garden is cheap and presentable to the community. Woman in this community share flower seed from the summer before and in turn are sharing their portion of nature that they have made for themselves. Nature then becomes a community oriented affair with flower gardens of all colors and makes begins brought into the town with no expense to the owner other than the had work of growing and maintaining her “children”.
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