Philippe Kopljar Kopljar 1

Professor Angelacki
SO2021 EN012G Literature and the Environment GR (A)
7 July 2021

“OIL AND WATER”: Parallels between nature’s agency and female agency in Ella Hickson’s
Oil

Introduction

In the western world the symbols associated with femininity and masculinity have permeated
society long enough to be considered part of the collective unconscious. Since the time of
Ancient Greece the feminine has been associated with water, the moon, cold, and moist, while
the male has been linked to the sun, heat, dryness, and fire (Porter 58, 130-131). The masculine
has been associated with power over nature (White 43), as well as power over women
(Merchant 10-11). In this essay I intend to show that in Hickson’s Oil these associations still
play a great part in the formation of the narrative, and prove that men’s control over women
and nature alike converges in the text to question the masculine perspective on humanity’s
relationship to nature.

Parallels of Exploitation and the Elements

In western history nature has been associated with the feminine, as being more powerful than
humans, but less powerful than God (Merchant 15). Women too have been historically
subservient, which Hickson uses in Oil;
“Why is it that you think you should be warm when the sun ain’t shining?” (Hickson
3), and “War started the day we decided that we had a right to be warm even when the sun isn’t
shining” (Hickson 74). The women are not warm inherently, but they yearn, as humanity yearns
for freedom from nature’s dominion, and as women yearn for freedom from the dominion of
men. What freedom women have is stolen by men, as nature is bent to the will of humanity:
“She’ warm. He takes her warmth.” (Hickson 6). A woman who has warmth—masculinity—is
subdued, robbed, dominated.
Throughout the text it is Amy who speaks of water, who carries wetness in the face of
drought. She dreams of a house by the sea (Hickson 33), she speaks of oil as being once tiny
sea creatures (Hickson 59), and she is first confronted with the desert through man (Hickson
36) before searching it out by herself (Hickson 94). The desert, while symbolically male, also
carries the image of nature dominated but still not subdued, its danger only ignored, for a time.
Philippe Kopljar Kopljar 2
Professor Angelacki
SO2021 EN012G Literature and the Environment GR (A)
7 July 2021
Like the Aral Sea, the desert is being drained of what once was water, for the benefit of man,
with dire consequence.
“FAROUK. There could be something so feminine about you if only…
MAY. Times are changing, Mr Farouk.” (Hickson 67)
This exchange is emblematic of water and oil, of woman and man. May, while woman,
has appropriated masculinity, has stolen warmth and dryness through the use of oil.
As the narrative moves from snow to desert we move from the feminine to the
masculine; woman is no longer needed, as nature is no longer needed—but in the end both are
distant, cut off from existence inside a box, light and warmth as artificial as May’s masculinity,
which she has worked so hard to uphold.
“AMY. […]You promised me that hard work, that progress was the answer.
MAY. I was wrong. I wish I’d learnt to ask for less earlier.” (Hickson 97)

Agency; Inherently Masculine?

Why does May appropriate the masculine? If we agree that “female and the earth as passive
receptors sanctions exploitation” (Merchant 16-17), we can argue that May tries to free herself
from that exploitation. Being desperate to gain a better future for herself and her daughter the
only way to do so is to take part in man’s domination of nature, and, in extension, of herself
and her daughter. As oil was once water and became destroyed by heat, pressure, hardness,
masculinity, so May becomes destroyer not only of nature, but of her daughter’s future, because
a masculine weapon (oil) cannot be made into water simply by the hands of women. Yet May
gains agency, always balancing on the edge of what can be accepted by man, freeing herself a
little more in each Part from the grip of men.
“MAY. We need /
AMY. / So you take.” (Oil 93) This need stems from the need to free oneself from
oppression; but oppression feeds oppression, both colonial in terms of people and nature.
Defiling the earth has been linked to violating women (Merchant 24, 26) and I hold that it is
not only through childbearing that women are agents of nature’s destruction (Angelaki 17) but
also through appropriation of masculine exploitation in order to gain agency. In Oil a woman
comes out on top, but only by clinging on to the power structures of men. If transgressions
against nature will repeat in a cycle (Angelaki 19) I argue that Hickson’s women, although
never passive, only gain agency by repeating the cycle of male violence; against nature and
Philippe Kopljar Kopljar 3
Professor Angelacki
SO2021 EN012G Literature and the Environment GR (A)
7 July 2021
women, in the fight for their own survival. The echoing gesture of men holding women by the
neck appears in the play as something that May runs away from, but even as they do, Amy is
sick from what man has offered her (Hickson 50-53) just as humanity is sick from what nature
has offered it. In Oil woman trying to free herself from man becomes man, becomes dominating,
colonising, a Frankenstein’s monster that turns science and progress into horror in the same
way nature, when its agency is taken away by man, becomes not a bountiful mother, but a
raging wilderness to be tamed, perpetuating the cycle of oppression, just as May takes part in
the destruction of her daughter’s future with nothing but good intentions.

Conclusion

‘due, […] to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made
in Shakespeare of the coming of “Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill”: I longed to
devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war’ (Tolkien 211)

The tree in Memory Rings reflects “through the state of its survival, the prevailing
environmental conditions” (Angelaki 54) and I argue that in Oil it is woman, as symbol, which
carries the same task of reflecting humanity over time. Oil then remains anthropocentric and
colonial in the sense that it is dystopian only for western masculinity as appropriated by women.
The play does not only question our dependence on oil, but also our reliance on the masculine
narratives which permeate our relationship with nature to this day. If nature in literature is often
“non-human wilderness and ferocity” (Angelaki 55) and nature in literature is also Mother Earth
(Merchant 14), then I hold that it is men who fight to subdue both.
The symbolism in Oil is the same that permeates western culture, and heightens the
subversive narrative of the text. May is active, has agency, but she is also dominated by men,
and in her urge for freedom she dominates others; human and nature. She becomes oppressor,
rather than freedom from oppression. She becomes coloniser, rather than freedom from
colonialism. The trees do not march to war in Oil. They too burn under the hands of men;
woman denies the feminine stereotype, and cuts ties to nature.

Works Cited
Philippe Kopljar Kopljar 4
Professor Angelacki
SO2021 EN012G Literature and the Environment GR (A)
7 July 2021
Angelaki, Vicky. “Theatre & Enviornment”. Red Globe Press/Springer Nature Limited, 2019,
pp. 17-54
Hickson, Ella. “Oil”. Nick Hern Books, 2016, pp. 6-97
Merchant, Carolyn. “Nature as Female”. Ecocriticism: The Essential Reader edited by Ken
Hiltner, Routledge, 2015, pp. 10-17
Porter, Roy. “The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity
to the Present”. Fontana Press/HarperCollins, 1999, pp. 58-131
Tolkien, J. R. R. “The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien”. edited by Humphrey Carpenter,
HarperCollins, 2006, pp. 211
White, Lynn Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis”. Ecocriticism: The Essential
Reader edited by Ken Hiltner, Routledge, 2015, p. 43