The Siren Song of the Desert:Feminized Desert, Nature, and Water as Cultural Critique in Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain

Abstract

In her 1903 book, The Land of Little Rain, Mary Austin’s descriptions of the desert are informed by a feminist perspective as she characterizes the desert landscape as feminine, capturing its power over the male mind. Austin argues that the desert landscape is rendered subordinate to the ways of man—much like how women, Native Americans, and Mexican residents were oppressed in the American West. Austin’s feminization of the desert landscape reveals how water reflects the cultural values and issues of the American West. By infusing her realism with the feminine, the magical, and the spiritual, Austin challenged the predominantly male literature about the landscape and nature of the American West to expand its cultural critiques and understand the complexities of natural resources and how we use them as agricultural, survival, and spiritual resources. This magical, feminine aspect is lost, however, in men’s interpretations of her writing, which flatten Austin’s writing into a simplistic nature narrative of the American West.