A Study Of Margaret Atwood From The Perspective Of Ecocriticism

Margaret Atwood is one of the most important writers in the world’s literary, who hadwon the Nobel award nomination for several times. So far, she has published more than50works of literature, including novels, works, poems, essays and children’s literature. Herworks involve many of the sensitive topics of contemporary life, for example: theinvestigation of the relationship between men and women, the ethnic identity of the Canadianpeople, the focus on human right issues, as well as the care to ecology and so on. Atwood isnot only a master in the field of literature; with her reputation she has also made a lot ofcontributions for various humanitarian organizations. We can say that she cultivated herliterature ideas by her attitude towards life, while conveyed her attitude through her literarycreation.As the “literature queen” in Canada, Atwood’s works have been under the hot discussionboth in domestic and foreign academic circles. The research achievements of Atwood’sworks are various and countless, with which the readers may know her better and at the meantime they have provided a profound influence in the study of this great artist in literature.This thesis intends to take the following parts of Margaret Atwood into consideration.In the Introduction, Atwood’s past experiences has been introduced, including hercontribution to the environmental protection. Meanwhile, a brief conclusion of Atwood’writings has been made here:1. nationalistic tendency2. Feminist issues3. Human’s rights4.Ecological concerns. The close relationships among these themes are anglicized the greatfocus of all her themes are towards the disadvantaged groups.Chapter One Nature and Ethnic Identity. Starting from the wilderness, this thesis hadanglicized the image of wilderness in Margaret Atwood’s works. The wilderness is thespiritual hometown of the Canadians and it has been playing a significant role in therealization of Canada’s national identity and the development of national culture.Chapter Two The nature and grassroots people. This thesis had focused on the natureand the people living at the bottom of the society. Some people who are suffering from thetotalitarian ruling can be considered as the victims of the hierarchy and economic oppression.Some others are oppressed by the colonialists such as the disadvantaged groups in Caribbeanareas and the Indians in the North American society.Chapter Three The environment revelation. Based on the description of the disasters inAtwood’s works, this chapter had explored her deeper thoughts on environmental problems.Atwood believed that the environmental problem is a mirror to the human issue: the misuseof scientific technology had led to a destructive consequence of the natural world. Thehuman-centralism is the spiritual source of the ecological crisis, and the human’s desire hasbrought the dual-crisis of both culture and nature.Conclusion. In this part, some conclusion about the literary creating themes andpurposes about Atwood’s writing had been made. At last, we have understood fromAtwood’s works that only we had eliminated all the oppression and exploitation between thehuman and the nature, as well as among the human beings could we live harmoniously onthis planet.