Discussion: the hunt + the use | part 1
Book: Sisters of the Earth
Author: Susan Griffin
Story: The Hunt + The Use
Pages: 282-286
The Hunt + The Use by Susan Griffin is my favorite excerpt from Sisters of the Earth. These two stories are spaced differently in Griffin's original work, Woman and Nature, but the union of the two works in Sisters of the Earth generates a powerful image of man's domination of women, land, and animal.
There is a lot to unpack in these few pages, so, today, we will be diving into the first section of this excerpt; The Hunt. (You can find the original work in Woman and Nature under the section "His Power, He Tames What is Wild".) If you close your eyes, you can feel the words of this piece dance, and then fall, as Griffin paints a moving image of a woman in her prime - strong, powerful, in control, and her journey from wildness to domination. At the beginning of the story, there is an intentional haze cast upon the protagonist. Is she a doe? Is she a human woman? She is both.
The woman and animal are one in the same. And she holds power and control. She is independent, alive with her own thoughts, motivations, curiosities, needs, desires. Graceful, intelligent, free. This, her wildness and independence, makes her so much of a temptation that the man must chase her. Her fleeing then makes her a tease.
"She has no mercy. She has dressed to excite his desire. She has no scruples. She has painted herself for him."
These thoughts imply that his desire, his "need" for her is her fault. Her dress is meant to tempt him. Her running is meant for him to chase. She is to blame for his suffering, his wanting, his hunger, his lust. She is to blame for his thirst. She is to blame for her rape. Her death.
Thoughts to Consider: This piece was written in 1978. Knowing this, what implications do you think this work had for the state of the relationship between the masculine and the feminine at the time? How does this piece relate to today's toxic masculinity, slut shaming, and rape culture?
It is interesting that after the death of the deer, there is a break in the haze. The deer and the woman are separated. The deer, the woman's wild nature, lays on the ground, bullets buried deep in her flesh. She has been broken. While Griffin still draws parallels with nature, the protagonist becomes clear. Still, he cannot control himself. And, so, he must tame her. Thus, a trick is played on her. He weakens her, makes her vulnerable, convinces her to trust him.
"Thus he goes on his knees to her. Thus he wins her over, he tells her he wants her"
Without a relationship with our wildness - our independence and self confidence - our need for approval becomes stronger. We yearn to be wanted. To be loved. To be cared for. To be valued. And in return, we forget who we are. We are made weak. And the last of our wild nature is stripped from our bones.
Thoughts to consider: How does this "taming" parallel the stories of selkies and their stolen skins?
Griffin goes on to then describe the next phase in the deconstruction and reeducation of the woman - the gift giving. Gift giving is a common tactic of abusers, and one that I am uncomfortably familiar with. This tactic of control is used to soften and silence the abused, and in this portion of the writing, the gifts bestowed upon her are parts of her wild self. Body parts of her relatives, her ancestors, sisters, children - are wrapped around her and laid before her feet.
"He gives her ivory. He gives her perfume. He covers her with the skins of mink, beaver, muskrat, seal, raccoon, otter, ermine, fox, the feathers of ostriches, osprey, egret, ibis."
"He makes her soft. He makes her calm. He makes her grateful to him."
She has forgotten herself and where she comes from. Her trauma, his violence, has made her a zombie. She is blind to the blood that drapes around her neck, and she is blind to her chains.
Thoughts to consider: What does this all-too-common male-dominated relationship teach us about love? How have you witnessed or felt this within your own life?
"When he calls to her, she gives herself to him. Her ferocity lies under him. Now nothing of the old beast remains in her."
And, finally, he has won. She has become the obedient wife. The perfect female. We've been tricked into thinking that to be feminine is to be soft. If we are loud, assertive, strong, confident we are somehow less woman. But, our wild nature disagrees. The idea of woman as a daisy - timid, modest, delicate, silent - is a patriarchal model of femininity, not a whole or true look at woman and nature.
Thoughts to consider: How does this progression - the breaking, the taming, the gift giving - relate to the way white Christian culture has dominated over and erased other religion and culture?
Another aspect of this piece that demands attention is Griffin's story within the story. A voice woven throughout the piece calls attention to the similarities between the conquering of woman and the conquering of animal/nature. She lists animal species that have gone extinct or are vanishing. The copyright of Griffin's work is 1978 and since then, the Florida key deer and wild Indian buffalo have been classified as endangered. The great sable antelope has now been classified as critically endangered according to the IUCN Red List. From 1970 to 2014 global wild animal populations have decreased by 60%. 1/4 of all mammal species are of conservation concern and more than 83 mammalian species and 190 avian species have gone extinct within the last 500 years. Our domination of nature, our changing of the very structure of the natural world is depleting our world of beauty, color, richness, diversity, and life blood. The roads we build, the pesticides we spray, the seeds we spread, the weapons we use - all these and more contribute to a domination of the natural that will destroy us too, in the end. Even the "natural" areas we create like city parks and backyards are more often than not manicured, sterile places where invasive and non-native species thrive and our native wildlife finds few resources or security.
We have broken nature and woman. We have cleared her of her forests and her hair. We have groomed her with dead offerings, a fur coat, a pesticide-filled lawn.
I am reminded of another work - The Rape of the Well-Maidens: Feminist Psychology and the Environmental Crisis co-authored by Mary E. Gomez and Allen D. Kanner. In this piece they talk about gender roles (boys expected to be dominant, girls expected to be nurturing, caregiving) and how "the despoiling of the earth and the subjugation of women are intimately connected". T
"The hunters then encircle that circle and first fire into the bodies of the matriarchs. When these older elephants fall, the younger panic, yet unwilling to leave the bodies of their dead mothers, they make easy targets."
The way the hunters manipulate animals to yield to them, to make the infants vulnerable to them compels me to wonder - what are our daughters to learn when they have been made vulnerable and dumb by witnessing our breaking and our trauma. What trauma have we inherited from our broken mothers and grandmothers?
We can look at this piece at 3 different scales.
the personal (individual gender identities, what our male and female children learn to become, what we have learned from our own ancestors)
the societal (systemic sexism and male domination in modern and historic society and culture)
the global (the global destruction and suppression of all that is feminine or natural)
On what scale does this piece resonate with your own life experiences? After reading Griffin's work what new thoughts or feelings do you have about the female connection to nature? The masculine domination and abuse of woman and nature? What trauma do you carry in your blood? In your womb?