The Ecotopia On The Nebraska Prairie

A major pioneer novelist of the 20th century American literature, Willa Cather has attracted much critical attention both in China and abroad. In her novel, the relationship between human beings and the nature is always an important theme. Domestic and overseas scholars who study Willa Cather mostly pay attention to her concern with the harmony in which human beings live with the nature, ignoring her genuine worries about and profound compassion for those immigrants living on the wild Nebraska prairie, who suffer from the alienation from land. Drawing on previous studies, this thesis makes a detailed interpretation of Myántonia from ecocritical perspective. Here, the relationships between human beings and nature will be discussed from positive and negative views. The thesis focuses on the role of land in human exsistence and the changes in immigrants' ecological awareness and perception. Willa Cather is pursuing an ideal existence in this novel. She creates an "ecotopia" in which man and man, man and nature live harmoniously. This ideal world not only embodies the consistence of nature spirit and human spirit, but also reflects Willa Cather's ecological consciousness both in her respect and love for nature and in her pursuit of common prosperity for everything under the sun.