From Rupture To Reconstruction

Richard Powers is a renowned American Postmodernism novelist,who is regarded as “a representative writer in the post-Pynchon era” by the public.The Overstory,his twelfth novel,is an ecological novel that focuses on the relationship between humans and non-humans.It has an enormous span of time and space.The background of the novel is set in the United States from the Westward Movement to the 21 st century.It tells a story of nine protagonists who possess deep connections with different tree species.They protest deforestation and attempt to save the ecological crisis.This thesis studies the human-tree community in the novel by utilizing the scale effect theory which is proposed by the famous ecological critic Timothy Clark.First and foremost,this thesis explores the condition of the human-tree community.Due to the scale effect and capitalism,humans neglect the climate change issue and excessively cut down trees.The combination of the limited ecological cognition and the unlimited destructive behaviors of human-beings results in the breakup of the human-tree community,which causes extinction of trees.It is an embodiment of Powers’ critique of anthropocentrism.In the second place,the thesis analyzes the crisis caused by the rupture of the human-tree community.The rupture of the community not only intensifies the development of hierarchy in human society,but also deepens contradictions between humans.Nick and Mimi Ma confront a serious spiritual crisis because of the loss of connection with trees.Finally,the thesis illustrates Powers’ ecological thoughts and his assumptions of the rebuilding of the human-tree community.On the purpose of the reconstruction,environmentalists protect trees collectively at the Free Bioregion of Cascadia,which reflects the writers’ notion that people should review the relationship between social development and ecological crisis from the view of arboreal scale.Richard Powers suggests people transcend the limitation of time and space to rebuild a harmonious relationship with nature.Richard Powers expresses an idea of ecological holism that opposes centralism and binary opposition in The Overstory.He appeals to humans to extend their moral concern from human society to the whole ecological field.Moreover,he calls for common citizens to shoulder their responsibilities for non-humans.Therefore,the community where human and non-humans coexist can be reconstructed.