The Confusion Of Modern Civilization

Robert James Waller has long been recognized as one of the most important and influential contemporary American writers. His novel The Bridges of Madison County has caused quite a stir since its first publication in 1992 and has made Waller famous overnight. Following his The Bridges of Madison County, Robert James Waller finished A Thousand Country Roads in 2002, known as the sequel of The Bridges of Madison County. In 2005 Waller's High Plains Tango was said to be the end of The Bridges of Madison County. These three books were thus jointly referred to as The Trilogy Bridges.The Bridges of Madison County contains a sensitive subject of extra-marital love. Owing to its particular standpoint and sensitive subject of extra-marital love, it has got mixed critical responses. Most of these critical papers concentrate on the sensitive subject of extra-marital love and hold the view that Francesca's choice of not leaving her family and refusing to go with Kincaid is the victory of reason over passion. Her choice and Kincaid's respect for her choice reveal their responsible attitude toward marriage, family and society. However, some critics have a negative view, believing that the novel has a bad influence on married people.A Thousand Country Roads tells of a story about the process of Carlisle's searching for his father, which is actually the extension of the story of The Bridges of Madison County as well as a prelude to the story of High Plains Tango. Therefore fewer people comment on this book. Most of the comments of High Plains Tango focus on the conflict between Carlisle and two women. Taking an overview of the researches at home and abroad, almost all the comments are separate, and few people analyze these books from the perspective of eco-feminism. Up to now, there have been no deep theoretical researches and reflection in this area.In 1974, French eco-feminist scholar Francoise d'Eaubonne first proposed the concept of eco-feminism. In the 1990s, eco-feminism finally established its own place in literary studies. Along with the deteriorating ecological environment, the eco-feminist ideas are not uncommon in the new literary works, and there is no doubt that more and more people have become increasingly concerned about eco-feminist literary criticism, which will inevitably bring about a"green"revolution. As global ecological issues become increasingly urgent, people's active participation in the study of eco-feminist literary criticism is clearly of great practical significance.The author of this thesis, based on previous researches and through a careful reading of The Trilogy Bridges and Waller's other works, tries to analyze The Trilogy Bridges from the eco-feminist perspective and hopefully will reveal the writer's practical significance of his works.This thesis is based on the materials the author has collected and the analysis is primarily at a textual level. The author's use of literary critical theories will be illustrative and subordinate to the textual analysis. This thesis consists of five sections. Section one introduces the present situation of Waller studies. Since eco-feminism is the theory the author mainly applies to the research, in the second section, the author will give a brief introduction to this theory and its application to the field of literary studies. In the third section, the author presents Waller's meditation on sexual tensions and his efforts to explore an ideal harmonious male-female relationship, and in the fourth his meditation on human-nature relationship and efforts for an ideal harmonious one, which is closely connected with the finally-achieved ideal gender relationship and in turn promotes the establishment of a harmonious gender relationship. Finally the conclusion summarizes the views of this thesis and suggests that The Trilogy Bridges should be taken as a potential target of eco-feminist studies and that Waller is a writer who has deep meditation on gender issues and human-nature relationship.