Nurturing in a Broken World: Maternal Ecofeminist Resilience in the Face of Environmental Trauma in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones and Sherri L. Smith’s Orleans

Abstract

In the context of escalated environmental crises, literature provides a nuanced lens to explore how marginalized communities respond to ecological devastation and its psychological aftermath. This study investigates how Jesmyn Ward‘s Salvage the Bones and Sherri L. Smith‘s Orleans portray motherhood as a form of Ecofeminist resilience in settings of profound environmental and social collapse. Through an Ecofeminist lens, the study examines the intersection between women, nature, and patriarchy while incorporating Patricia Hill Collin‘s Black feminist framework to center black women‘s experiences. It also employs Glenn Albrecht‘s concept of solastalgia to analyze the emotional turmoil of the protagonists. Moreover, it provides an in-depth comparative method grounded in close reading and thematic analysis of motherhood and resilience. The research critiques the role of ecological and social degradation in creating struggle-filled environments for marginalized communities. It also sheds light on the different survival mechanisms black women employ to navigate these fraught environments. Ultimately, the study contributes to Ecofeminist literary criticism as well as ecological discourse, offering relevant insights into the complex interplay of gender, race, and environmental trauma in contemporary African American literature.