Author: Melody Hobebesion
Email: BBALLINLAXIN19@yahoo.com

       "Man's dominion over nature was authorized to a limited extent in Genesis; however, the empowerment of man has been a source of great ecological controversy and theological concern. The issue comes when male figures take excessive power over nature into their hands, following what is clearly a bad ecological guideline.  This theme can be traced throughout a series of literary works where a fallen male figure is shown excessively usurping power.
       In my essay, Nature: Man's Laboratory; Woman: Man's Rib, I examine how dominion over nature is asserted by Prospero in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Hawthorne's Rappacini's Daughter and The Birthmark, and H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. While doing this, I also look at the parallel theme of male domination v. female subordination in each text. Each text is analyzed thereby through both an eco-critical lens and an eco-feminist critical lens."