An Analysis Of Refuge:An Unnatural History Of Family And Place From The Perspective Of Land Ethic

Terry Tempest Williams(1955-)is an outstanding author and naturalist.She dedicates her life to describe the nature from the perspectives of form,expression,and aesthetic.Her works are deeply loved by worldwide readers and get the attention of scholars.The author is considered to be a remarkable author in American nature writings field.She once received Rachel Carson Honor Roll,Wallace Stegner Award,and National Wildlife Federation's Conservation Award for Special Achievement.Williams is also a prolific author.Her representative work,Refuge: An Unnatural History of family and Place(hereinafter referred to as Refuge),is known as the environmental literature classic.Terry Tempest Williams has profound insights into the natural world in this work.She juxtaposes her mother's death by cancer with a dying wildlife refuge.The studies of Refuge at home and abroad mainly focus on ecological criticism,ecological feminism,material feminist,genre and dichotomy these aspects.No papers or works have analyzed it from the perspective of land ethic yet.This paper is based on Aldo Leopold's land ethic,and takes its content as the breakthrough point to analyze this work.Through the analysis of the novel,findings are mainly as follows:(1)The author emphasizes the equality between man and nature,and it matches the land ethic which stresses humans and other creatures all belong to the land community,however,humans always act as a conqueror to destroy the nature.(2)Williams describes that humans' wrong behaviors are largely due to the lack of conscience.She indicates that only by putting the protection of land on the moral level can we truly protect the nature.(3)In view of three principles of land ethic namely integrity,stability and beauty to analyze this novel,it can be found that Williams tried to tell people how to take right actions by presenting the violation of these principles,so that human beings can live harmoniously with nature.From the above discussion,we can draw a conclusion of Williams' ecological thought of Refuge from two aspects.On the one hand,she emphasizes human beings and non-human beings share the same right in the community.On the other hand,through depicting a series of the destructive behaviors,she appeals for humans to have the moral obligation to preserve the integrity,stability and beauty of nature rather than mistreat or oppress other creatures.