An Ecocritical Study On The View Of Nature In E.M.Forster’s Fictions

Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) is one of the prestigious English novelists in the20th Century. With a reputation of natural writing and a concern about the relationship between men and Nature, Forster’s fictions are related to the aspects of Modernity. This Thesis is dedicated to reveal the distance between Forsterian view of Nature and Ecologism through an ecocritical study on Forster’s texts. The reasons for the gaps and the meanings of the similarities will be fixed on and interpreted, which aim at the secretes of both Modernity and the failure of connection.Initially, in order to gain a clear idea of embodiment and Modernity, a brief glimpse of the issue ’Body and Mind’ in Philosophy, Anthropology and Ecocriticism is necessary, especially their histories, rationalities and drawbacks. Above all, the specific representations and their forms of Nature and embodiment in Forster’s texts are indispensable yet questionable.Secondly, guided by these threads of Ariadne, different meanings and values would be found attached to different connections between men and Nature under the particular laws of these fictions, some of which are ecological, some are not. However, none of them have approached a real connection, thus attentions are drawn to their anthropocentric essence.Then a further investigation on these anthropocentric connections would be held. By considering the advocates-the Liberal-Humanists and their methods contributing to solidity, their advantages and achievements, their myopia and misunderstandings would be shown apparently in their chronological opinions of men and Nature, which forge distinctive stages of Forster’s natural writing.Finally, the paths leading to the very heart of the labyrinth in Forster’s world-the Marabar Caves-turn out to be suggested by Leonard Bast, who acts as a unique incompatible term within Forster’s fictions. They imply the seemingly ambivalent honesties to Liberalism and New Liberalism, individuals and the world, Nature and Liberty, which to some extent stop these works from heading to a more satisfactory inter-subjectivity and ecologism.