Literary representation of nature and humanity in Jeanette Winterson's "The Stone Gods" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2023 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, , language: English, abstract: How is nature represented in the novel? How do the characters think about nature? These questions lead me to my hypothesis. Seeing all the devastating, dystopian effects, I presume: In the novel The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson the concept of nature is represented as a binary opposite to the concept of humanity. This hypothesis includes the reference to a binary opposition, which describes "a pair of mutually exclusive signifiers which are logically opposed." (Oxford Reference)

I want to pursue this Ecocriticism approach, which refers to "the study of literature in relation to environmental issues" (Garrard 2007), by focussing on the structure, the macro-level of the text. Therefore, I will also consider the form of the novel, for example with its rhetorical tropes and chronologically work through the plot and setting of the novel looking for evidence, which supports or negates the hypothesis. Part 3 of the novel, "Post-3 War", will not be part of my analysis, because it does not include relevant, ecological representations of nature.