Man And Nature

Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner are generally acknowledged as two of the most influential novelists of the twentieth century. And the writings of both novelists have already been interpreted from a wide variety of critical perspectives, such as techniques, language styles, narration, and feminism. Up to now, there are not many people who have compared the works respectively by Hemingway and Faulkner from a new perspective—ecocriticism. As most of the ecocritics initially just focus on "nature writing", specifically "environmental texts", which marginalized the fictional works concerned with the ecology and environment, I therefore chose the narrative fictions by Hemingway and Faulkner respectively, to echo with Patrick D. Murphy that the role narrative fictions play is no less important than the role played by non-fictional works in environmental protection. So, in this thesis, I intend to choose The Old Man and the Sea and The Bear as tests to explore how the relationship between man and nature is illustrated in such two novels for the purpose that "all texts are at least potential environmental."Both novels have been criticized for failing to make their outdoor heroes more active in defense of the wilderness they profess to love and even defined as anti-ecocritical texts because they are hunting stories full of masculinity, which some previous critics, especially ecofeminists, have suggested is the course of environmental deterioration. This dissertation, from a new perspective, comments the above statements, and affirmatively illustrates the eco-consciousness embodied in both novels. Furthermore, the root of the prejudice is traced from the perspective of ecomasculinism. The aim of the dissertation is to arouse people's eco-consciousness to protect our degrading environment so as to keep a good and harmonious relationship between man and nature.