A Study Of Animal Dreams From The Perspective Of Environmental Justice Ecocriticism

Barbara Kingsolver(1955—)is a prolific contemporary American woman writer,whose writings are influential and won a lot of awards.Most of her novels involve themes like social justice,environmental protection,and environmental justice.Animal Dreams(1990)is one of Kingsolver's significant novels.It has highly acclaimed in academic circle since its publication.Scholars analyzed her work from different kinds of perspectives,for example,place ethics,trauma theory and cultural studies.Among them,some scholars mentioned the thought-provoking environmental injustice phenomenon in the novel.However,they have studied the novel systematically from perspective of environmental justice ecocriticism.Therefore,this thesis will interpret Animal Dreams from environmental justice ecocriticism perspective on the basis of previous studies.The fact that environmental racism widely exists in American society will be recognized from the perspective of environmental justice ecocriticism.This thesis falls into three parts that are Introduction,the body chapters and the conclusion.Introduction deals with Barbara Kingsolver's life and her main literary achievements.Then it gives a brief survey of the current studies and the environmental justice ecocriticism.The main body focuses on the environmental injustices reflected in the novel.The first chapter talks about the "environmental injustice" suffered by Mexican Americans and Nicaraguans.Grace,a Mexican Americans' community,suffered from environmental disasters such as land degradation,groundwater pollution and biodiversity reduction.Nicaraguan living environment is threatened with dirty industries,unwanted agricultural chemicals,and civil war.Chapter Two chiefly deals with the main causes which result in the above-mentioned environmental injustices,namely,the conspiracy of anthropocentrism and racism in Anglo-American culture,which is reflected by multinational companies and globalization,as well as America's military intervention and the economic manipulation in Nicaragua.Based on the above analysis,the last chapter urges people to transcend the self-centered logic,getting rid of anthropocentrism and racism in order to achieve environmental justice.Grassroots organizations' cultural resistance and finding ecological wisdom in ethnic minorities' traditional culture are also helpful.In conclusion,this thesis briefly summarizes the full text,and points out that the close relationship between environmental problems and social justice.The solution to environmental problems depends on the achievement of environmental justice.To sum up,on the one hand,a comprehensive and profound analysis of Animal Dreams from the perspective of environmental justice ecocriticism reveals that Mexican Americans and Native Americans are forced to suffer from environmental oppression and exploitation due to environmental racism.On the other hand,it suggests multicultural strategies to eliminate oppression and thereby leading to universal environmental justice.