A Study Of Body Writing In The Overstory In The Context Of Posthumanism

Richard Powers,as one of the well-known X-generation writers in the U.S.A.,inherits the postmodernist writing styles of Thomas Pynchon and other contemporary American writers.His works prefer to make descriptions of the most advanced technological knowledge and think about their advantages and drawbacks as well as effects on man and their living world,and thus achieving distinctive characteristics of the posthumanism age.In one of his latest novels,The Overstory（2018）,which won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2019,Powers focuses on nine protagonists’different relationships with trees and involves knowledge of ecology,genetic engineering,computer programming,psychology,art,and many other fields together,making the novel complicated with numerous themes yet a harmonic resonance.Body,as the experimental object of advanced technologies in the 21st century,not only faces the threat of metamorphosis but also has the danger of complete transformation from something about material existence into something connected with information and data.In The Overstory,body is a prominent issue,which can be seen from the confrontations made between the atypical bodies of marginalized human or nonhuman and the typical human body.Besides,body is made to be an ideal image to indicate the future world,which can be considered as Powers’ warning towards the human in the posthumanism age.Based on postmodernism theoretical ideas of body,chaos,technology,ethics and related literary theories and criticism,this thesis attempts to analyze different presentations of body,mainly bare body,technological prosthesis,and connected bodies and their significance in The Overstory,hoping to discuss Powers’ exploration of the future body,an inclusive,cooperative and dynamic chaotic system,and his recognition of multiple relationships between body and power,body and technology,body and world displayed in this novel,and trying to point out his reminding of modern human beings who live in a society where technology occupies a monopoly position that our relationships with the others should be reconsidered.This thesis is made up of five parts.The introduction part mainly gives an introduction of Richard Powers and his life as well as his literary achievements,and meanwhile literature review of the previous studies related to the writer and The Overstory both at home and abroad is provided for the following criticism.And in this part,theoretical framework of the present thesis and its studying significance are also expounded.Besides Introduction,the following three chapters discuss the specific body presentation to show body’s initiative,passivity and its sliding boundary.The first chapter "Bare Body" explores body’s activity and passivity of different species’ bare body in the face of choices between life and death,aiming to highlight the similarities between human and non-human.The first part of this chapter shows the agentic wildness inside the human body by analyzing Arson Five’s movements,such as peeing in the public,hoping to prove that the bare body has the impulse to return to the wildness under the outside pressure.The second part analyses the plague and trauma respectively suffered by trees and warriors to explain the common sense of pain passively shared by the human and non-human body,attempting to illustrate the fundamental similarities of these bodies.The third part resorts to Ray and Oliva’s body experience as cases to try to analyze the disease of the body,which can be considered to be the critical boundary between agentic body and passive bare one,hoping to demonstrate the first transgression Powers makes in this novel when he tries to sketch the ideal body,that is,the brave body that can accept the disease calmly.The second chapter "Technological Prosthesis" shows the technological body which takes technology as the possibility of the body’s extension.As one of the tools to enhance the body,technology can perfect the body and equip the body with a new level of agentic wildness through providing tools such as the wheelchair and even the online virtual world.However,it also brings extra passivity to the body,like Patricia and Neelay’s suffering via cyber-violence,making it face a new technological and cultural dilemma.Between the body enhancement and passive death initiated by technological prosthesis,the issue of sustainable development comes into vision.Richard Powers makes the second transgression for the future ideal body,namely embracing cooperation with nature by using the examples from e-chestnut to Learner.In view of the previous discussions on individual body,the third chapter"Connected Bodies" goes on exploring bodies presented in groups.The first part of this chapter attempts to illustrate that the body has the differentiated material reality that makes the connection with others possible.This connection runs through the novel through the image of "tree",which is not only reflected in the narrative structure of the novel,but also mapped in its narrative content.The second part makes use of Douglas’s experiences in prison by twice to discuss that the body in the group may passively face the pruning of rules,hoping to proving the shaping and disciplining of human rights and power towards the body.The last part focuses on the union made between human and non-human bodies presented in the novel.The mutual constructions of man and tree as a fractal runs through the novel,which are strengthen by the iteration of the most advanced technology in the postmodern age.Through the redefinition of the species relationship between human and non-human,Powers finishes his final sketch of the ideal body not only displaying a kind of possible relationship for companion species,but also indicating a self-organized ecosystem in the future.Based on the above exploration of the body’s iterative agentic wildness,diversity,and desire for connection presented in the novel,this thesis argues that body also suffers the exponential growth of oppression,control,and re-shaping.With rapid development of science and technology in human world,the body with unprecedented desire not only ushers in a new era but also fights with the increasingly strict rules,which bears the brand of the age without question.With the perspective of body and its related theoretical ideas and concepts,this thesis explores body’s initiative,passivity and boundaries at different levels,discusses the relationships between body and power,body and technology,and body and world dialectically,and talks about the features of politics,technology,and becoming for body itself,hoping to better understand Powers’ thinking and exploration of the crisis caused by scientific rationality ad’vocated by humanism in the posthuman era.Regarding the arrogance and rudeness of human being positioned in the "world" titled by human beings,the thesis’s reflection of man’s superiority in the social class and even among species presented in The Overstory through the discussion of the writing of body has got naturally a sense of moral criticism and practical significance and meanwhile hopes to achieve its referential value for the way we think about and recognize the body of the future.