VIOLA-AS-FISH: AN ECOFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF TWELFTH NIGHT

In the last forty years, feminist literary criticism have pointed out that Shakespeare questionedgender roles in his plays, creating surprisingly powerful, resourceful female charactersin a context of misogyny and exclusion of women. More recently, ecofeminist theorists such as Rebecca Laroche and Jennifer Munroe(2017)haveargued that Shakespeare’s worksalso destabilize the confines between humans and non-humans, which isan essential element to deconstruct complex gender issues. Adopting an ecofeminist approach, this essay willanalyse Viola’s character, the protagonist of Twelfth Night,aiming to demonstrate how her relationship to the marine world broadens the interpretation of cross-dressing, a crucial aspect of the play. Firstly, it will present Val Plumwood’s deconstructionist ecofeminist theory and discuss why Early Modern views on the natural world can be insightful to an ecofeminist analysis. Secondly, supported by Dan Brayton’scontributions inShakespeare’s Ocean, it will examhow Viola’s relationship to the marine world undermines gender roles and deconstructs the concept of “humanity” itself.