An Eco-Criticism Interpretation Of Main Street

Main Street is Sinclair Lewis' controversial novel and he is also famous for it.The novel depicts the life of a small town in the United States,and reveals the dark side of American town life.Currently,Scholars at home and abroad mainly study the theme,characters,satirical techniques,social thought,feminism,consumer culture,narrative,biography and speech of the novel,and few researches have been done from the perspective of ecological criticism.In this paper,ecological holism,anti-anthropocentrism,deep ecology and Mr.Lu Shuyuan's ecological trichotomy are used to analyze the social ecological crisis,natural ecological crisis and spiritual ecological crisis in Main Street to deepen readers' understanding of the ecological connotation of the work,to awaken readers' ecological consciousness and to enrich the research dimension of the novel.This paper focuses on Sinclair Lewis' thoughts of ecology,analyses how his ecological thoughts and social ideals are embodied in Main Street,and explores the causes of ecological crisis and solutions of these crises.It is found that Lewis,through his works,shows the readers that man and nature are equal,and that only by respecting and returning to nature can man live in harmony with nature;The disharmony between people will lead to the imbalance of social ecology and the potential social crisis,so the harmonious coexistence between people is the key to solve the social ecological crisis;Mankind must be conscious of the mistakes in current human civilization,culture and ideas and correct them so as to improve the spiritual ecology,promote the improvement of natural ecology and social ecology,and speed up the solution of the current ecological crisis.It further reveals the enlightenment of the novel to the real world: anthropocentrism leads to the natural ecological crisis,the disharmony between man and society leadsto the spiritual ecological crisis,and the disharmony between man and man leads to the social ecological crisis.Spiritual ecology influences and restricts social ecology and natural ecology.The improvement of spiritual ecology can promote the perfection of social ecology and natural ecology.The key to solving the ecological crisis is that human beings need a profound change,seek a new way of development,and establish a new human civilization marked by environmental protection.First of all,human beings must reshape the cultural concept of society and follow the scientific concept of development.Secondly,human beings must examine the current economic development model and follow the principle of sustainable development.Thirdly,mankind should establish a new way of production and life and live a low-cost but high-quality life.The enlightenment for today's social ecological protection is put forward,which has certain guiding significance for the solution of various crises that human beings are faced with presently.