On Willa Cather's View Of Plants In Prairie Trilogy

Willa Cather is one of the most important American writers in the late 19 th century and the early 20 th century.Most of her novels are about female pioneers in mid-western,and the works O Pioneer!,My Antonia and The Song of the Lark are deemed as Prairie Trilogy.At present,ecological researches on Cather's novels are mainly limited in the relationship between human and nature,ecological aesthetics and eco-feminism at home,but few researchers analyze Cather's works from the perspective of plants.This thesis takes plants as research object and aims to explore Cather's view of plants in Prairie Trilogy.Interdisciplinary research and close reading of the text will be used in this thesis.Based on Schweitzer's Reverence for Life,knowledge of botany and folklore will also be adopted to explore Cather's view of plants from the following aspects: 1)What living forms of plants does Cather display? 2)What pattern of existence between human and plants does Cather demonstrate? 3)How does Cather reconstruct the relationship between human and plants?Cather displays plants' living forms from their personality consciousness,space extension and time continuity,manifesting plants' subjective image.By displaying plants' living forms,Cather overthrows human stereotype of plants and proves that human are not the only subject in nature.And she also questions the dominant position of human and changes plants' identity as “other” which is labeled under the view of anthropocentrism.Cather demonstrates symbiotic pattern between human and plants through representing behavioral symbiosis,cultural symbiosis and spiritual symbiosis.In Prairie Trilogy,Cather displays human preservation of plants' right and demonstrates human concern about plants' life,revealing behavioral symbiosis of good and responsibility that Schweitzer insists in Reverence for Life.The writer then describes cultural symbiosis of the relation between plants and religion,and displays the unity of plants and human in soul to reveal human reverence and worship for plants.Besides,Cather also demonstrates the spiritual symbiosis of sense of home and senseof nostalgia that human reflect in their mind based on plants' intrinsic value,through which Cather achieves the reconciliation of plants' tool value and intrinsic value.Cather reconstructs the relationship between human and plants through reenchantment of relationship and identity rebuilding.Cather describes the mirrored relation and mutual fusion to revel life commonality and life intercommunity between human and plants,through which the author repairs the opposition between lives formed in industrial society and brings their relationship back to the origin without utilitarian desire.Then Cather rebuilds the identity of human and plants to subvert their inherent identity relationship,forming new identity between two lives while blurring the essence of life,through which Cather achieves the undivided unity of human and plants.This thesis explores Cather's view of plants that she acknowledges plants' subjectivity and the relationship of intimate symbiosis between human and plants.She advocates to reacquaint and recognize plants' life in the process of reconstructing the original relationship and identity relationship between human and plants.