A Study On Ecological Novels In The New Century From The Perspective Of Ecological Criticism

Ecological thought had risen gradually and became a global trend since the1970s, which affected China inevitably and brought plenty of ecological literature and works on ecology theory. Besides, after China’s reform and opening up, environmental problems became more and more serious with the rapid development of economy, such as air pollution, deficiency of water, degeneration of forest and grasslands, reduce of wild animals etc., which made some writers to pay their attention on ecological problem, and literature exposing ecological crisis and calling on environment protection emerged in large numbers. Reportage in the1980s proses and poems on ecology in1990s were the representative works, fictions, especially novels, however, became prosperous in21century.In this thesis, several representative novels are selected to clarify the basic features of ecological novel in21century, including its characteristics, values and significances, imperfection and shortages. Ecocriticism methods are used in this research.There are four part in this thesis. In Part1, ecocriticism is defined. Its rising and development in the west, spread and development in China is also introduced. In Part2, several ecological novels that had great affect in21century are selected and classified to introduce different kind of ecological novels. Taking grassland ecological novels and western ecological novels as examples, analyze similarities and differences of their text narrating and ecological thoughts. Part3focuses on the objects of ecological novels, namely, human’s material desire, modern science and technology, urban civilization. Analyzes the solutions given in the novels, which are temperance of greediness, reverence for life, restoration of faith and searching for reasonable economic system. To research it further, text meaning of ecological novels is revealed, the value and significance of ecological novels is discussed. Based on above three parts, Part4analyzes imperfection and shortages of ecological novels in21century, mainly including stereotyped tendency and unbalance between showing crisis and exploring the causes.In stereotyped tendency general tragedy ending, stereotyped character and propagandistic tone are specifically analyzed. The thesis comes up with a glorious expectation of the development of ecological novels in the end. As ecocriticism becoming to a noted school of thought and outstanding ecological novels emerging, this thesis is to discuss the values and significances of ecological novels through analyzing representative ecological novels in21century, and provide reference for ecocriticism and ecological novel producing.