Searching For Poetic Dwelling: An Interpretation Of Annie Proulx's That Old Ace In The Hole From The Perspective Of Deep Ecology

Annie Proulx(1935-)is a well-known contemporary American novelist.Her short story collections “Wyoming Trilogy” and other novels such as The Shipping News have established her unique status in American literary circles.Most of her works focus on the frontier areas of the western or southern United States,depicting territories with distinctive regional characteristics and the loss of tradition as reflected by localism and the economic destiny affected by industrial civilization and capital operation.In That Old Ace in the Hole(2002),Annie Proulx portrays the history and current reality of the Texas Panhandle,focusing on the protagonist Bob's perception and mental transformation on the scouting of the hog farms,highlighting the contemporary conflicts and tensions between the expansion of American industrial capital and the ecological environment.This thesis aims to interpret the novel That Old Ace in the Hole from the perspective of deep ecology in ecological criticism.Deep ecology advocates ecological holism,highlights the inherent value of natural ecology,and regards human Self-realization as the highest standard for getting along with nature.At the same time,this Self-realization coincides with Heidegger's idea of poetic dwelling.Poetic dwelling advocates the search for the spiritual home of people and the pursuit of a beautiful living state in harmony with nature.This article firstly presents the anti-anthropocentrism embodied in That Old Ace in the Hole.We can see that the local environment,animals and even residents are all oppressed by capitalist anthropocentrism;This article then discusses the advocacy of the ecological holism embodied in this novel,which mainly manifests itself in the ecological egalitarianism displayed in this work,the maintenance of integrity in the Texas Panhandle,and also the symbiosis between the human and the natural world.The concept of ecological holism is clearly demonstrated when the local people finally united to resist the invasion of hog farms and committed to building Prairie Restoration Homesteads;Finally,the protagonist Bob and the local residents' Self-realization are analyzed.They all realized their own value by identifying and maintaining ecological value.Bob eventually chose to stay in the Panhandle and work with the local residents for the restoration of their homeland.They not only achieved Self-realization,but can also enjoy poetic dwelling in the Prairie Restoration Homesteads.Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole reflects her worries that human's invasion of nature and destruction of the ecosystem will eventually affect themselves.In the end,the local residents worked together to build Prairie Restoration Homesteads,which is her longing for the harmonious coexistence of human beings and nature.It also provides new ideas for solving our current ecological problems.