| After a slow start in the early 1990s,ecocriticism has become one of the fastest-growing and promising areas in literary study and a "self-conscious enterprise". This thesis attempts to approach Margaret Atwood's representative novel HT(1985) from the ecocritical perspective.Since its publication,this novel has been studied from diverse perspectives,which mainly focus on the novel's dystopian features,its postmodern narrative strategy,feminism theme and power politics,etc.However,a detailed and comparatively profound ecocritical analysis on it is rarely seen.This thesis consists of six chapters:Chapter One makes a critical review of HT at home and abroad,briefly introduces the critical theory——ecocriticism and displays the plan of this thesis.Chapter Two aims at illustrating HT to be an environmental apocalypse,by respectively analyzing the natural,social and spiritual ecology embodied in the novel.Chapter Three is devoted to interpreting the "toxic consciousness" in HT,mainly from the following aspects:poisoned human bodies, radioactive fallout,pesticides and environmental injustice,arguing that the toxic consciousness in HT strikingly echoes that of Rachel Carson's SP and those practical major toxic disasters in the late 1970s and early 1980s.Chapter Four adopts an ecofeminist approach to explore the unique relationship between women and nature represented in the novel,including:women suffering much more in environmental degradation;women's special affinity to nature;the connections between women and animals,with the purpose to show Atwood's persistent ecofeminist theme in HT. Chapter Five discusses reasons for ecological crisis revealed by HT from the aspects of science and technology,consumerism and Christianity.Chapter Six draws a conclusion about the achievements this research has made and its significance.This thesis attempts to shed some fresh light on the research of the novel by providing an ecocritical perspective,in the hope of evoking more readers' environmental awareness.
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