Dust and Domestic Walls: How Isolation and Gendered Labor Confine Ellen’s Agency in The Lamp At Noon

This research studies Sinclair Ross's short story "The Lamp at Noon" (1939) through an ecofeminist and spatial theory framework, how the harsh prairie environment of the Great Depression intersects with patriarchal gender roles to subvert female agency. This research explores how Ross constructs the farmhouse as both material haven and psychological prison for protagonist Ellen, using spatial imagery and environmental symbolism to represent the dual pressures of environmental calamity and patriarchal imprisonment. Through close text analysis, the study demonstrates how the personified dust storm is both literal environmental calamity and metaphorical expression of Ellen's psychological suffering, serving as an externalized voice for her repressed emotions. This research uses the qualitative method utilizing the close reading with the theoretical framework ecofeminist, gender roles, and environmental determinism. The analysis shows how gendered divisions of labor under environmental catastrophe intensify Ellen's psychic trauma as her domestic labor becomes increasingly useless against the invading dust while her husband Paul maintains a narrative of heroic survival. Ross's narrative structure, with its alternating perspectives and rhythms of failed communication, highlights the utter isolation and psychological breakdown for women in crisis. This analysis is used to describe how nature writing reveals the uneven impact of ecological disasters on women and marginalized communities, offering knowledge relevant to current environmental and social justice movements. (Ecofeminism, Environmental Determinism, Gender Roles, Environmental Crisis)