Simon C. Estok defines ecophobia as “a uniquely human psychological condition that prompts antipathy toward nature.”1 Estok emphasizes that ecophobia has genetic roots and that these roots function in part to protect our species. Therefore, evolution causes a fear of the dark, of snakes, or of various natural events. On the other hand, although these fears have the potential to develop into ecophobia over time, Estok underlines that this instinctive fear differs from ecophobia. Estok reveals that ecophobia is present in novels, films, and other narrative genres that exploit, nurture, elaborate, magnify, and distort such fears in order to market a story, product, or politician.

Ecophobia, like homophobia, misogyny, racism and speciesism, is perpetuated through language-embedded stereotypes and can exist openly or implicitly in literature and art. Estok, who explores the underlying causes of ecophobia using a historical approach, traces the emergence of ecophobia to the Bible, which gave people the right to control everything that exists, including the lives of those around them. “Control, of course, is the key word here,” says Estok, and interprets human history as equivalent to the history of control of the natural environment. Estok, who emphasizes Francis Bacon’s views that nature exists both for and because of humans and that the aim of science is to regain the dominance that humans have partially lost, argues that this desire for control transforms nature from a subject into an object that can be indefinitely controlled and used for continuous production by the capitalist economy. At this point, like other theorists working on ecofeminism and queer ecologies, Estok emphasizes the similarities between ecophobia and other discriminatory ideologies. For example, Val Plumwood points out the resemblance among misogyny, racism, speciesism, and hostile attitudes toward nature and shows that the same way of thinking underlies each of these approaches. Plumwood states that the fault line of dualisms that clusters as culture/nature, mind/nature, man/woman, mind/body and subject/object is common, and in order to understand these dualisms, the crucial connections and common structure that they share must be addressed. Estok, who explores theorizing the ecophobia hypothesis with awareness of these connections, invites ecocriticism—which devotes itself to establishing connections in a way that echoes ecology—to accept that issues such as ecophobia, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and speciesism are already tightly interconnected and therefore must ultimately be addressed together.

In the light of Estok’s ecophobia hypothesis, this article, which will discuss Murathan Mungan’s play Geyikler Lanetler from an ecofeminist perspective, aims to discuss the relationship between the nature/culture duality encountered in the play with other dual clusters and to track the traces of ecophobia in the play. As is often seen in his other works, Murathan Mungan gives an important place to nature and women in Geyikler Lanetler. The play tells the story of four generations of a tribe and how the tribe, which had lived a nomadic life for years, remained stuck between its own customs and the laws of nature during its transition to a settled way of living. This piece establishes a multi-layered structure, including a narrative in which dreams and reality often mix together as well as transitions in both time and space.

It is possible to observe the nature/culture duality within the play, specifically in the conflict between the natural order and the customs of the tribe. The characters, who regard the laws of the tribe as supreme, are portrayed as tragic characters who risk losing their eyes, their children, and even their lives for this cause. Against these traditions, nature is depicted as an unpredictable and uncanny force. Through the connections emphasized by Estok, it is also possible to interpret other dualities in the play that connect to the fault line between the nature/culture dichotomy. In this context, critical examination of the positioning of nature and women in the play from an ecofeminist perspective offers a convenient perspective from which to address the different layers of the play.