From Conflict To Reconciliation-An Eco-critical Approach To Cloudstreet

Tim Winton, born in 1960 in Western Australia, is one of the best contemporary Australian novelist, and is also a writer ever to have won Miles Franklin Award four times. Winton’s hometown is in Western Australian coast and the regional features influence his writing styles greatly. Winton draws his prime inspiration from landscape and place, mostly coastal Western Australia. Many of his works contain and reflect the thought of eco-criticism which advocates the wholeness and union among the whole ecology in the world.As one of Winton’s greatest work, Cloudstreet reflects the theory of eco-criticism. The novel depicts two families, the Lambs and the Pickles, who become united and establish out of alienation and prejudice a closed and harmonious community with help of love after experiencing so many ups and downs in Cloudstreet. Reading the novel thoroughly, the process from alienated conflicts to harmonious reconciliations with society, spirit and nature which is conveyed in Cloudstreet is really accorded with the concept and the theme of eco-criticism.This thesis attempts to have an analysis of Tim Winton’s ecological thoughts embodied in Cloudstreet by using eco-criticism. By analyzing the characters’images in the text and the story plot, it reveals that anthropocentrism leads to humans’conflicts with the social ecology, the spiritual ecology and the natural ecology reflected in the novel. Only with the help of the ecological holism, can human beings get rid of conflicts and achieve reconciliations. In order to achieve reconciliations, human beings not only need to attach importance to humans’spiritual ecological situation, to keep a balanced and harmonious lifestyle in all these aspects of spirit, society and nature, but also they need to show love to the surroundings and nature.Thus it concludes that only giving up anthropocentrism and embracing ecological holism, can human beings have a better understanding of the whole ecosystem, regain their sense of responsibility and awaken humans’power of love. Gaining strength and power from love, people can solve conflicts, reach reconciliations, rebuild community and integrate into the whole ecological system to make it to be a harmonious and united wholeness by means of love. This thesis clearly shows the directive meaning for human’s life which is reflected in the ecological ideology.