An Ecocritical Interpretation Of Cormac Mccarthy’s Cities Of The Plain

Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright, who wins the WilliamFaulkner Award, Guggenheim Award, and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, who is named as one ofthe four major contemporary American novelists. His novels are welcomed by readers andhighly praises by the critics. The Border Trilogy establishes his position in American literature.Although the Border Trilogy has been analyzed from several perspectives, of whichecocritisicm is a highlight, the researchers’ focus lies on the first two novels of the trilogy.Until now, few men analyse the last one Cities of the Plain independently and thoroughly.This thesis aims to interpret this novel from the ecocritical perspective, discussingMcCarthy’s ecological thoughts and his exploration of means to solve environmental crisis.This article consists of three parts.Introduction is about the general information of the writer McCarthy, the novel Cities ofthe Plain, the overseas and domestic critical review of the novel, and the origin, development,and philosophical foundations of ecocritisicm.The first part probes McCarthy’s opposition to anthropocentrism from two aspects: theauthor’s love and admiration for nature, and his denunciation of man’s control over nature.The second part discusses McCarthy’s attempt to solve environment crisis with the ethicsof reverence for life. Through demonstrating cowboys’ reverence to horse and other animals,the author recognizes the intrinsic value of all living creatures and the equality among them,reestablishes biocentrism.The third part explores McCarthy’s attempt to solve environment crisis with the humanecology of forsaking evilness for goodness. McCarthy’s illustration of Mexican hospitality,brotherhood among the cowboys, and true love between several pairs of lovers is a reflectionof all virtues of human beings. All these goodness is expected to restore harmoniousrelationship in human society, so as to rebuild human-nature relation.