An Ecological Ethic Interpretation Of We Were The Mulvaneys And A Garden Of Earthly Delights

Joyce Carol Oates is a famous writer in contemporary American literature. During heralmost forty years of writing career Oates has achieved great success, publishing more thanfifty novels and a great number of short stories, winning countless literary awards. As Oates’searly and mid-term work respectively, A Garden of Earthly Delights brings Oates RosenthalFoundation Award and We Were the Mulvaneys reaches the top of The New York Timesbest-seller list in the same year of publication.As early as1970s Oates’s works have aroused wide concern of critics abroad. In recentyears there are more and more Chinese scholars making study on Oates and her works fromdifferent perspectives, mostly focusing on feminism, violence analysis, and psychologicalinterpretation. With the increasingly serious ecological crisis in today’s world, ecologicalethical thought, which lays stress on respecting nature, treating other creatures kindly as wellas protecting environment, gradually gains wide concern of the academic circle. Endowingliterary works with the brand-new ecological connotation and significance also becomes aninevitable trend of ecological ethics and literary criticism. This thesis attempts to study WeWere the Mulvaneys and A Garden of Earthly Delights from the ecological ethic perspective,probing into the profound ecological ethic implications and interpreting the ecological ethicthought reflected in the works.Many of Oates’s works focus on the relationship between human beings and nature. WeWere the Mulvaneys and A Garden of Earthly Delights are among the most cogent records onher probe into nature through which she expresses her nostalgic feeling for the farm life andinfinite longing for nature. In this thesis, seven characters with strong ecological ethicconsciousness in the above two novels are analyzed with detail. It consists of five chapters.The author firstly gives an introduction to Oates’s life and works, sorts out current studies onOates, and then gives an overview of ecological ethics, including biocentrism, ecocentrismand ecofeminism, as well as Oates’s eco-ethic views derived form her early life experiences,the environmental movement and Henry David Thoreau’s thought on environment. By usingthe theory of ecological ethics, the author then probes into the ecological ethic implicationsreflected in Oates’s works, focusing on the relationship between human beings and nature.For one thing, human’s reverence for life and respect for nature as well as human’s ecologicalresponsibilities are presented; and for another, women’s interconnection with nature in thepatriarchal society is exposed, showing that women gain strength from nature by establishingan intimate relationship with it and feminine power can also make a great contribution toprotecting nature and to improving the alienated human relations. Based on the detailed analysis of the seven characters’ close relationship with nature, the thesis concludes thathuman beings’ love and respect for nature and Oates’s ecological ethic consciousness areexpressed in the two works. With the interpretation of We Were the Mulvaneys and A Gardenof Earthly Delights, the thesis reveals the necessity for human beings to establish aharmonious relationship with nature, which is also human’s responsibility. To appreciate theabove two novels can also help us better understand the theory of ecological ethics and Oatesas well as her works.