Date of Award

1-1-2016

Language

English

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School/Department

Department of English

Program

Liberal Studies

Content Description

1 online resource (vi, 37 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Bret Benjamin

Committee Members

Glyne A Griffith

Keywords

All Over Creation, Capitalism, Food production, GMO, Ruth Ozeki, Farm life, Capitalism and literature

Subject Categories

English Language and Literature

Abstract

This thesis understands Ruth Ozeki’s novel, All Over Creation in the context of the capitalist system of production pulling non-commodified goods into it in search for profit. This thesis offers the naturalization of nature given as “gift” by God that we can see through the character of Lloyd Fuller, and the political/ethical orientation of ecological movement evident in the Seeds of Resistance. I consider these to be problematic approaches to food and agricultural industries since this roundabout rhetoric impedes readers from seeing through the fundamental problem structuring food production. Focusing the author’s ecological and political imagination, I argue that Ozeki does not see the mechanism of capitalist system of production in food and agricultural industries. Uncovering the limitation of Ozeki’s All Over Creation as literary representation of the real world, I examine what the author did not pay close attention to, specifically, the fact that the food is produced as a commodity-form within the logic of market in the capitalist system of production. I seek to introduce Karl Marx’s several concepts to this thesis, for I consider those key concepts are still relevant to understanding the current food system integrated into capitalism.

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