This scientist, Rappaccini, is so interested in science that heeven turns his daughter Beatrice into his experimental victim. Because Beatrice hasbeen raised in the presence of poison, she is therefore poisonous herself. It turns outthat being poisonous not only ruins Beatrice’s young life, but also stifles her love withyoung Giovanni.According to scholar Fryer (1974), Rappaccini's Daughter contains references toDante's Divine Comedy, the Garden of Eden, and Milton's Paradise Lost as itjuxtaposes the scientific aspects of research (Professor Rappaccini and ProfessorBaglioni) with spirituality (Giovanni and Beatrice) and explores original sin. Whencompared to the Birthmark, it also can be found that female heroin begins to have theconsciousness of revolt rather than yielding blindly. Although they cannot always getaway with man’s control to their body, obituary resist makes a quite difference(spiritual freedom). As Hawthorne wrote in the story:"I would fain have been loved, not feared," murmured Beatrice, sinking down upon theground. But now it matters not. I am going, father, where the evil which thou hast striven tomingle with my being will pass away like a dream-like the fragrance of these poisonousflowers, which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden. Farewell, Giovanni!Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; but they, too, will fall away as I ascend.”(Hawthorne 1846) 2. The Development Of Ecofeminism2.1 The concept of ecofeminismDuring the progress of human civilization, Feminism has always been a kind ofsocial ideological which advocates vulnerable groups to revolt against the oppressionof the others. After a long period of development, as well as affected by multiplefacets of society and various disciplines, it gradually evolved into a new theory ----ecofeminism, especially in the background of nowadays environmental crisis andecological civilization construction both domestic and abroad.The concept of ecofeminism was first proposed by Francoise D’Eaubonne, aFrench feminist thinker in 1974, through her published book
The Woman or the Death.She explored the relationship between human and nature. Also, she called on womento launch an ecological revolution in order to save nature, which established thefoundation for a new era of feminist research innovation and development. This newtheory links women and nature together, based on this ground, it points out thatfeminism and ecological problems can not be studied in isolation. It especially paysattention to the inclusion and construction of the system, as well as criticizes theoppression towards women and ecology caused by the traditional western dualism andpatriarchy.Although a large portion of the researchers mentioned that it was not easy togive ecofeminism a widely acceptable definition, some of them managed to give theirown understanding. As Hu Zhihong (胡志虹 2013) and Hu Tiantian (胡湉湉 2013)cited Warren’s general definition to ecofeminism in her essay, “The term ofecofeminism is umbrella-shaped, which includes the recognition of all kinds of rulesystems towards the people in subordinate position -- especially towards women, italso includes using persity and multicultural perspectives to examine the essentialcorrelation among the non-human nature rule”. On the other side, Wei (2014) cited theview “Ecofeminsm is a criticism of nature acting as the representation of femalepatriarchal, it is the correction and rediscovery of the important roles women playedin the area of natural history, scientific research and natural writing”.Generally speaking, what ecofeminism wants to convey is the close connectionbetween man’s oppression towards women and human’s oppression towards thenatural environment. After experiencing nearly 40 years of development, it hasobtained numerous substantive research results in some interdisciplinary fields suchas philosophy, humanities, ecology and literary criticism. Also, it is of greatsignificance both in the construction of ecological balance under the globalizationcontext and the development of Chinese feminism. 生态女性主义下的霍桑小说三部曲解读(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_35997.html