An Ecological Reading Of Winston’s Spiritual Progress In Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is his representative allegorical work and is considered as one of the three greatest anti-utopian works. Since its publication, it has attracted wide attention and comments because of its astonishing description of the future. Up to now, many critics have heatedly discussed it from the perspective of dystopian themes and analyzed it from the political dimension, whereas no one has ever studied this novel from the aspect of the spiritual ecology as far as the author of this thesis knows.Based on Lu Shuyuan’s definition of the spiritual ecology as well as its related theory and combining other scholars’ researches at home and abroad, this thesis attempts to interpret Winston Smith’s spiritual progress: from spiritual pursuit to spiritual surrender from the perspective of the spiritual ecology.The kernel of the spiritual ecology is harmony, including harmony of individual spiritual ecology and of social spiritual ecology. A harmonious society includes not only social harmony, natural harmony but also harmony of inner world. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston’s spiritual progress corresponds with changes of his spiritual ecology. It starts with some disharmony, then evolves into stable sound harmony and finally ends with complete disharmony.The thesis consists of three parts. The first part is the introduction, mainly including a brief overview of the relationship between Orwell and his Nineteen Eighty-Four, the literature review of studies of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four at home and abroad, and a brief introduction to the spiritual ecology. The second part is the body which is composed of three chapters. Chapter One focuses on presenting the background of spiritual wasteland where Winston lives. Under the reign of totalitarianism, man’s spiritual world changes into a spiritual wasteland. The social spiritual ecosystem is destroyed, which results in spiritual crisis in the society. Chapter Two elaborates Winston, who lives in a spiritual wasteland, making every effort to seek for his ideal spiritual home during the process of spiritual pursuit. Chapter Three is an analysis of Winston’s spiritual transformation at the end of the novel. After a series of brutal physical and mental tortures, together with compulsory brainwash, Winston’s spiritual ecology has lost its balance thoroughly and degenerated into a spiritual vacuum.These chapters are followed by a conclusion that sums up the major points of the thesis as a whole. Winston’s pursuit of harmonious spiritual ecology fails in the end and his spiritual ecosystem is thoroughly destroyed by external forces. His spiritual ecology loses balance completely and can not recover any more. Then this thesis points out that the case of Winston’s spiritual exploration is not only possessed of great value of research but also offers some inspiration for our social spiritual ecology. The author of this thesis assumes that researches on the spiritual ecology are in agreement with China’s building a harmonious society and a harmonious sound spiritual ecology can also accelerate its progress.