The Human And Nature Writing In The Overstory From The Perspective Of Cognitive Ecocriticism

Cognitive ecocriticism is based on biological evolution and cognitive psychology,integrating cognitive research and ecological literature research,and believes that concepts and methods related to human cognition can be applied to analyze ecological literature.The Overstory is a typical ecological literature work,which mainly tells the story of the nine protagonists around the trees,reflecting the ecological view of the author Richard Powers.From the perspective of cognitive ecocriticism,this thesis deeply studies the narrative content and narrative purpose of Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory,trying to answer following questions:(1)what kind of nature does the author write in the novel?(2)what kind of human does the author write about in the novel?(3)how does the author integrate human writing with nature writing? what are the purposes and significance of doing this?This thesis is based on the main viewpoints of cognitive ecocriticism and related concepts and research framework in cognitive literature and cognitive psychology to analyze the novel.Firstly,cognitive ecocriticism reckons that integrating human background into nature writing can expand the vision of ecocriticism.Therefore,based on the Figure-Ground theory,this thesis analyzes that the author depicts nature with free nature,humanized nature and virtual nature as the figure,and human events as the ground,revealing the author’s views that human should concern free nature,maintain ecological balance,and treat virtual nature rationally.Secondly,cognitive ecocriticism holds that human mind and behaviors are affected by environmental factors,including natural environment and social environment.Therefore,based on the concept of Social-cultural school in Neo-psychoanalysis,this paper studies the human writing in the novel,explains the four human cognitive tendencies embodied in the works: pro-environment,environmental injustice,pro-society and anti-society,revealing the author’ views that human beings should fully play their pro-environment and pro-society tendencies,and overcome environmental injustice and anti-society tendencies to protect the environment better and better.Finally,cognitive ecocriticism believes that the narrative mode can convey substantial idea of the work.Therefore,this thesis analyzes the narrative mode and narrative purpose of the work according to the three levels of the Text World theory,and believes that the author unifies the human writing and nature writing,and establishes a complete world story model,interpreting the author’s views on the relationship between human and nature: human and nature are the unified whole,human and nature have an interactive relationship,and the relationship between human and nature should maintain a dynamic balance.Cognitive ecocriticism has broadened the research scope of ecocriticism to some extent,and provided new tools and framework for the research of ecological literature.This thesis mainly studies the narrative content and narrative purpose of The Overstory,which reveals its literariness features.At the same time,this paper also focuses on the realistic meaning of the work,which can be better interpret the functional features.