Nature’s Influence In American Initiation Story

The growing-up stage is a significant period of one’s mental, psychological andspiritual development. Many writers and scholars, at their different ages, expressedtheir concerns about the problems appeared in people’s growing-up period by a sameliterary genre, which was studied and concluded later as initiation story. Americaninitiation story developed rapidly after it was born and soon became an independentbranch in its own country and a heat subject to be studied.Along with the environmental deterioration, the relationship between nature andhuman beings is becoming tenser and more sensitive these years, eco-criticism as anew perspective to appreciate literary works is widely accepted and frequently adopted.Literary critics begin to pay more and more attention to nature’s position, function andinfluence in novels and fictions. Yet among the numerous researches of Americaninitiation story, few have mentioned the important function of nature in thegrowing-up course of the protagonists. This thesis, from the approach of eco-criticism,through the analysis of three representative American initiation stories--Mark Twain’sAdventures of Huckleberry Finn, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and HermanMelville’s Moby Dick, which depict the protagonists’ mental, psychological, andspiritual initiation respectively, proves that in American initiation story, naturefunctions as a significant guide and enlightenment to the protagonists in their processof growing-up, therefore playing an irreplaceable and positive role in adolescents’development.It’s hoped that this thesis can shed a little light on the relationship between humanand nature, to let people especially adolescents be aware of the positive effect broughtby nature on their way from innocence to maturity, so as to truly recognize nature andthe relationship between human beings and nature, thus to set up a correct view of life,nature, and self-value.