A Comparative Study Of Wolf Totem And White Fang

Since the reform and opening up, China’s GDP has grown rapidly and finally China has become "the world’s second largest economy" after decades of hard work. Such a brilliant achievement is worth praising. However, environment pollution has become more and more serious behind the gradual rise of people’s living standard, and yesterday’s picturesque scenery has become the paradise only in dreams. Today, "a foggy city", "orphans of the foggy city" and "virtuous people haunted by smog abstaining from inhalation for self-protection" and so on has become the joke among Chinese people. This shows that people begin to realize the importance of environmental protection. Against this background, the two animal novels, Wolf Totem by the Chinese contemporary writer Jang Rong, and White Fang by 20th-century American novelist Jack London come into our attention. Both touch upon the above issue from the perspective of ecocriticism. Their viewpoints conveyed in the two books deserve careful analysis and profound contemplation. Therefore, a comparative study project is designed to pin down the similarities and differences between Wolf Totem and White Fang.The current thesis consists of six parts. The first part is the introduction, including the research background and the significance of comparing Wolf Totem and White Fang. The second part is literature review, which surveys current scholarship at home and abroad on Wolf Totem and White Fang respectively as well as comparative studies of the two, so as to assert the originality of the current thesis. The third part is about theories relevant to the research project, i.e. ecocriticism and humanism. The forth part discusses similarities between Wolf Totem and White Fang. First, the two novels both convey the theme of anti-anthropocentrism and the idea of man-nature harmony. Secondly, animal characters in the two novels are given human traits so that the two books become exploration into the human nature. Finally, the setting of the two novels, on one hand, is actual scenery, and on the other, becomes a carrier of the writers’ecological attitudes. The fifth part analyzes differences between Wolf Totem and White Fang. From the ecological viewpoint, Wolf Totem imparts the grassland logic, which advocates ecological holism while White Fang emphasizes human respect for animals’rights to live and to be free from emotional abuse. With regard to human nature, Wolf Totem advertizes the writer’s ideal of human character through portrayal of the wolf character while White Fang dramatizes the complication of human character to express the writer’s worries over people’s inner world. In terms of the effects of setting, Wolf Totem depicts the deteriorating grassland to warn people of the possible dark future of human beings while White Fang juxtaposes different survival environments to illustrate Jack London’s philosophical view of survival of the fittest. The last part is conclusion, which summarizes the major points of the entire thesis and gives suggestions for further research.