An Ecological Study Of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove

Larry McMurtury is acknowledged as one of the most outstanding writers of American west and the representative writer of the serious western fiction after the Second World War in America.The novel Lonesome Dove is Larry McMurtry's masterpiece.Lonesome Dove depicts a group of cowboys' long trek driving thousands of cattle from Texas north to Montana,which was part of the westward movement.The author of this thesis finds that imbalance appears in nature,society and the characters' spirit,which resulted in the tragic ending of the novel.This thesis aims to study Lonesome Dove from an ecological perspective adopting Arne Naess' s “deep ecology” theory and Lu Shuyuan's “spiritual ecology” theory.The thesis is divided into five parts.The first part is introduction,which introduces the life,works and achievements of Larry McMurtry,the research status abroad and domestic on Larry McMurtry and his novel Lonesome Dove,a literary review on ecocriticism and an introduction of the ecological theories that are applied in the thesis;Chapter one analyzes the imbalances shown in the frontier natural ecology from two aspects,civilization's invasion of wilderness and nature's warning;Chapter two analyzes the imbalances shown in the frontier social ecology from three aspects,disorder in the frontier society,Indian's loss of discourse power and frontier women's loss of discourse power.Chapter three analyzes the imbalances shown in some of the characters' spiritual ecology,from the aspects of obscure awareness of identity and spiritual trauma respectively.Conclusion makes a general review of the entire thesis and points out that only if human beings respect other forms of lives,respect other races' rights and women's rights,find their own proper identity and position in nature and society,can they seek peace and meaning of life in civilization and wilderness.