Introduction 1
Chapter One Adam's Paradise 22
Ⅰ.The Formation of the Western Myth and Its Essence 22
Ⅱ.Three Types of Women Images in the West 38
Ⅲ.The Land-as-Woman Metaphor in the Western Myth 44
Ⅳ.Women and the Western Landscape:A Privileged Standpoint 50
Chapter Two Dispossessed of Paradise:Scarborough's The Wind 58
Ⅰ.A Masculine West 59
Ⅱ.Female Victims of the Androcentric Thinking 72
Ⅲ.Nature as Scapegoat 84
Chapter Three Challenging the Male Paradise:Ferber's Cimarron 93
Ⅰ.The Reversed Roles in the West 94
Ⅱ.A Satire on the Prairie Madonna 105
Ⅲ.Destruction of the Western Land 121
Chapter Four Recovering Mother's Garden:Cather's My Antonia 132
Ⅰ.The Introduction:A Different Version of the American West 133
Ⅱ.Jim Burden:An Easterly Journey to Be Away from Nature 138
Ⅲ.Antonia Shimerda:A Westerly Journey to Be with the Prairie Land 156
Chapter Five Repossessing Mother's Garden:Austin's The Land of Little Rain 171
Ⅰ.The Land as Owner and Host 172
Ⅱ.The Native People's Connection with the Land 182
Ⅲ.The Basket Woman and Her Basket-Making 188
Conclusion 198
Bibliography 208