The Ecocritical Study Of O.Henry’s Fiction

O. Henry (1862-1910) has been recognized as one of the most brilliant short story writers in the world. He is famous for his surprising endings and humor. Due to his great contributions to the form of short stories, O. Henry Award was first presented by American Society of Arts and Sciences in1919.O. Henry’s works are full of ecological thoughts and consciousness, however, up to now, it is hard to find any thesis analyzed from the ecological perspective. This dissertation will explore ecological thoughts and consciousness contained in parts of O. Henry’s fiction by means of applying Arne Naess’s deep ecology and Shuyuan Lu’s interpretation of spiritual ecology.The thesis consists of three chapters which will discuss natural ecology, harmonious social ecology and unbalanced spiritual ecology respectively.Chapter one focuses on natural ecology. By analysis of relations between nature and self, nature and human beings, the thesis points out nature is spiritual and gives all the living things what they want. Human and nature coexist harmoniously. Humans respect and care for nature while nature heals human beings when they get hurt. Mankind and nature are equal. They are compared to each other very often for they have some common characteristics and share same feelings.Chapter two is devoted to harmonious social ecology from three aspects:loves between spouses, trust between friends and affections for strangers. Husband and wife sacrifice their favorite to meet each other’s needs. In face of difficulties, friends help and protect each other. Their friendship means sincerity, loyalty and trust. Strangers dedicate charity to those who are in difficulties.Chapter three emphasizes on the crisis and salvation of ecology. With the development of industry, humans face a mass of spiritual problems. They advocate that money is first and foremost important than anything else. In order to make wealth, they spare neither committing crimes nor killing partners nor telling lies. Being corrupted by civilization of modern society, people lose their souls and become distorted and alienated. They change themselves into machines who propose to t wife again, into dogmen who are deprived of dignity and into hypocrites who disguise the wealthy. Facing the unbalanced spiritual ecology, O. Henry indicates that humans should live simple lives and return to nature.In conclusion, this dissertation analyzes O. Henry’s fiction and found out they are full of the ecological thoughts and consciousness. It is hoped that the thesis can attract more researchers to study on O. Henry’s works. Besides, it also expects that the solutions to the crisis of spiritual ecology can help people to get rid of spiritual problems in reality.