Comfort the Waste Places, Defend the Violated Earth : An Ecofeminist Reading of Isaiah 51:1-52:6 and Tracy Chapman's Song "The Rape of the World"

Abstract

This article compares the personification of Zion in Isaiah 51:1–52:6 as a mother and daughter with Tracy Chapman’s 1995 song “The Rape of the World”, where the earth is personified as a mother. These works share the power of metaphor in prophecy, poetry, and song to provoke political and social activism in multiple areas of injustice, using rape imagery in different ways. Both pieces portray the negative effects of human activity on the earth, whether by commercial activity or war. The environmental impact of the desolation of the earth during the Babylonian exile depicted in Deutero-Isaiah is viewed through the lens of ecological criticism. The earth itself has a voice in both Chapman’s and Isaiah’s words.

Keywords

• ecological criticism
• ecofeminism
• zion
• deutero-isaiah
• tracy chapman
• rape
• political activism
• pop music
• personification