“Her Own Creed of Bloom”: The Transcendental Ecofeminism of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

This chapter discusses the influence and impact of literary transcendentalism on Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s short fiction. It explores her desire to promote key goals such as social reform, respect for the individual and self-culture, and the study of one’s corresponding relationship to environment. The chapter also explores her efforts to go beyond the ecocritical aims of earlier writers by showcasing forward-moving, influential fictional protagonists who actually achieve and reflect on these lofty aspirations in a way similar to ecofeminism. Through analysis of four stories, “Christmas Jenny” , “Arethusa” , “The Great Pine” , and “The Apple-Tree” , this essay argues that Freeman’s characters educate and improve themselves and their worlds by challenging and changing restrictive views on gender, not only prioritizing and appreciating the spiritual beauty and companionship of the natural world—as did the first-wave transcendentalists—but also protecting it, confronting and transforming environmental irresponsibility and the patriarchal institutions who seek to perpetuate nature’s destruction for profit.