A Study On Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway And To The Lighthouse From The Perspective Of Ecological Aesthetics

Virginia Woolf is an important female writer in British literary history and she has a unique status in British literature. The ecological aesthetics concepts have not produced in Woolf?s life age, but we can find the germination of her consciousness of ecological aesthetics through the reading of the novels. The progress of science and technology and the development of the society have brought a great deal of material wealth to the western society, but at the same time, they also have broken the harmony and balance between man and nature, man and society and man and self. Woolf is concerned about the ecological problems and human survival problems arising from the society very much. Her two novels Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse contain her pursuing for the ideal state of “Oneness of nature and man”, and she advocates building the harmonious ecological relations, and she calls on people to conform to the nature rules and has the equal coexistence with nature. There is no lack of ugly humanity in reality describing in her novels. She takes this ugliness to highlight the beauty in reality, calls on people to attach gr eat importance to the humanities concern and advocates building the healthy humanity relations, so her novels contain abundant ecological aesthetics thoughts.Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are two very representative novels of Woolf. In the two books, Woolf incisively and vividly shows her ideas of her loving of nature, her longing for the return of human nature, her pursuit of a harmonious and warm interpersonal world. It is appropriate with the theory of ecological aesthetics. Therefore from the perspective of ecological aesthetics, basing on the test reading and takes the characters and plots of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse as the research object to conduct a comprehensive analysis and reveals the consciousness of ecological aesthetics in them, which provides a new angle of view and method to understand and study the two novels, at the same time it causes the reader?s deep thinking of relationship problems between man and nature, man and society, man and self, and find s out the root of the conflict relationship, finally builds the harmonious outlook on life and world view.This thesis is composed of five parts including the conclusion:Chapter One gives a brief introduction to Virginia Woolf and her novels. It summarizes the previous studies of Virginia Woolf at home and abroad, and the research purpose and significance of this thesis. And this chapter summarizes the ecological aesthetic concept, and makes the theoretical analysis to this emerging discipline from the aspect such as the research object, significance and value, which further make sure that this thesis studies Woolf?s two novels from the angle of the broad sense of ecological aesthetics.Chapter Two emphatically discusses the formation of Woolf?s ecological aesthetic s consciousness. It starts with her special life experience, and analyzes the significant influences caused by the World War, family environment, social atmosphere and the mental illness. Then it traces back to find the reason why the author chooses ecological aesthetics thought to research Woolf?s novels. Finally it can be found that all these factors have a great influence on her literary creation and they are the foundation of ecological aesthetics thoughts reflected in her novels.Chapter Three unearthed the implied ecological aesthetics thoughts in Woolf?s novels, starting from the text, through the fustigation on the ugly human nature and human greediness and the criticism on imbalance of human and nature and the reflection to the human spiritual predicament, it gives a wake-up call to the modern people: the imbalance of man and nature, man and society and man and self causes serious consequences. It can be seen that Woolf focus es on people living?s conditions and her high demand of harmonious society.Chapter Four respectively discusses the specific expressions of natural ecological beauty, social ecological beauty and spiritual ecological beauty through the analysis of the two novels. It analyzes the implied ecological aesthetics thoughts in the novels. This chapter expresses her love and awe of nature and Woolf expresses her eager pursuit of the harmonious and “Oneness of Nature and Man” ecological aesthetics relations. And it expresses Woolf?s detached attitude towards life and death, meanwhile expresses her yearning and pursuit of harmonious gender relations and warm interpersonal world.Chapter Five reaches the conclusion part, which makes a integrated conclusion to the whole thesis, gives an overview of Woolf novels? literary value of ecological aesthetics, and analyzes her attitudes and methods in dealing with the problems of the relationship between man and nature, man and society, and man and self, and in the modern age, people should take what kind of mentality and attitude to face nature.