An ecogothic reading of radcliffe's the mysteries of Udolpho and Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter"

Literature has occupied an important place in people's lives throughout history. For this reason, people have used literature to reflect their feelings and express their opinions on a subject. Especially ecocriticism is of great importance in the works reflecting the ways of life of societies. Especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, gothic and ecocriticism were frequently used in English and American literature. The reflection of natural phenomena in literature is called ecocriticism. In addition to this, the gothic genre also occupied an important place in almost all works in the mentioned periods. Supernatural beings, dark, mysterious, and fearful events as well as bad weather conditions are frequently used to reflect the gothic genre. The simultaneous use of bad natural conditions and the gothic genre brings a brand-new approach to the reader. It is an important point that nature is a powerful phenomenon instead of being just a background. Gloomy forests, violent thunderstorms, and storms are depicted through the inner worlds of the characters. This literary approach is called ecogothic. In this thesis, the works in question are analysed with a deep approach by delving into the inner worlds of the characters in the Ecogothic genre. In this study, Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story 'Rappaccini's Daughter' convey the conditions of the period to the reader with the ecogothic genre. The common point in these two works is that women are the main protagonists. The current social and social events of the period are reflected through female protagonists. The inner development of the female protagonists and their efforts to find their power are effectively reflected in the dark and dangerous side of nature. At the same time, it also reveals the society's perspective and approach to women in the period in which the works were written. Critical analyses of these two social works express the fear and change in the background of the restrictions and problems experienced by societies.