The Horrors of Ecofeminism: Exploring the Hidden Depths of Ecophobia in Evie Wyld's The Bass Rock

Through the lens of ecofeminism, the permeability of the Scottish coast in Evie Wyld’s novel, The Bass Rock (2020), explores the ways in which feminine corporeality relates to contemporary Female Gothic and how this is intertwined with humanity’s exploitation of nature. The fears and anxieties experienced by feminine bodies within the coastal environment are juxtaposed against Simon C. Estok’s theory of ecophobia – an idea rooted in the anthropocentric and androcentric fear of a threatening and vengeful nature. Instead, Wyld draws on the Scottish Female Gothic to reflect the blurring of boundaries between women and ecology and explores the permeable borders of both human and nonhuman through the incorporation of the haunting feminine – shown in the merging of past and present narratives in the context of continued oppression and violence towards feminine bodies by men. It is the overwhelming presence of an anthropocentric and androcentric desire for domination that results in the production of fear for feminine bodies within these ecological spaces rather than as a direct consequence of the environment.