as our servant:
Ozone depletion, carbon dioxide buildup, chlorofluorocarbon emissions, and acid rain upset the respiration and clog the pores and lungs of the ancient Earth Mother, rechristened "Gaia" by atmospheric chemist James Lovelock (Merchant xv).
The image offered by Merchant is of the earth as a living organism affected by poisons much the way a human body would be. Merchant makes her view of how the development of science altered the prevailing metaphor when she states:
Between the sixteenth and seventeenth century is the image of an organic cosmos with a living female earth at its center gave way to a mechanistic world view in which nature was reconstructed as dead and passive, to be dominated and controlled by humans (Merchant xvi).
Merchant states that she wants to show the connections between social change and changing constructions of nature, meaning that the changing view of our relationship to nature was also reflected in a new view of the place and role of women in society.
There is little doubt that nature has been conceived of as female--the image of Mother Nature is well-known, and Merchant points to numerous literary references showing that nature is considered a female entity. She begins with images from the sixteenth century and says that Europeans at the time considered the self, society, and the cosmos bound together as an organism. A central view in this imagery was that nature was a nurturing entity, feeding humankind an all the animal kingdom. This was only one element in the view of nature as female:
Central to the organic theory was the identification of nature, especially the earth, with a nurturing mother. . . But another opposing image of nature as female was also prevalent: wild and uncontrollable nature that could render violence, storms, droughts, and general chaos. Both were identified with the female sex and were projections of human perceptions onto the external world (Merch...