An Ecocritical Reading Of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing

Margaret Atwood, a Canadian contemporary woman writer, is a versatile poetessand novelist with international reputation. The traditional studies of Atwood tended tofocus on her woman characters, the social constructions, and her strong desire to earnidentity for women and Canada. With the development of environmentalism in the late20th century, more and more readers throw focus on the profound ecologicalimplications reflected in her works. The author herself is a scholar with keen ecologicalconsciousness and shows deep concern on the endangered environment.This thesis attempts to analyze Surfacing (1972); one of Atwood's best-knownnovels, from the perspective of ecocriticism, probing the profound ecologicalimplications reflected the relationship between human-nature relationships in this work.The main body of this thesis consists of four parts. The first part is an introduction,which focuses on the traditional studies on the author and her achievements.The second part gives an overview of ecocriticism and discusses its feasibility forthe study of Surfacing. Ecocriticism is a newly emerging literary perspective withnature, humanity-nature relationship and nature-culture relationship reflected in literaryworks as its main research focuses. Normally labeled as a nationalist and feminist,Atwood is also a scholar with keen ecological consciousness. And with the theory ofEcocriticism the reader can understand Atwood's ecological thoughts concerninghuman-nature relationship clearly.The third part seeks to analyze ecological implications in Surfacing through closetext reading. The detailed depictions of the ecological crisis show Atwood's greatconcerns over the deterioration of nature. Most important of all, Atwood shows herattitude of opposition to anthropocentrism through the vivid depiction of the narrator'ssimple animal-like lifestyle.The fourth part intends to disclose the ecological revelation in Surfacing. Humansare part of nature, indivisible from it. For Atwood humans must abandon the conquestof nature and return to the embrace of Mother Nature. Atwood just uses theexaggeration of the narrator's incredible lifestyle to indicate others to hear the story andlearn their own ways to live harmoniously with nature.The special value of Atwood in the novel lies in the relationship between nature and human in the technological society. For the contemporary readers, the realisticsignificance of studying this novel is to awake the ecological consciousness, generatethe feelings of awe and enlightenment as well as promote a more ecological lifestylethat humans live harmoniously with nature.