2. Literature Review

Eco-criticism first appeared in the 1970s in the USA. And since then, Hemingway’s works have been reread from the perspective of eco-criticism. As to his best work The Old Man and the Sea, Charlene M. Murphy, who focused on how Hemingway described nature, especially his description about hunting and fishing, firstly argued that “Hemingway’s writing reveals a reverence for nature and sensitivity” (Murphy, 1999:165). Later, some critics began to focus on Hemingway’s self-consciousness reflected in his writing and his attitude towards nature. Glen Love put it in Practical Eco-criticism that “the right relationship between self and earth were of such crucial importance to Hemingway, and to those readers who, like me, have been deeply influenced by his depictions of the inpidual in nature— that it seems likely that it would continue to engross him, had his career carried forward into the environment awareness of the late 1960s and beyond” (Love, 2003: 133-134). In China, a growing number of scholars and critics are rereading The Old Man and the Sea from the perspective of eco-criticism. Wang Nuo, a renowned Chinese eco-critic, pointed out that Hemingway’s attitude towards nature was self-contradictory and complicated by discussing his struggle between fishing in the sea and pity for sea creatures, and Wang Nuo concluded that “the old man was not written as a cold-blooded machine in conquering nature, but a man who expresses a love or worship for nature” (Wang Nuo, 2002: 21). Another Chinese scholar, Lai Ji, studied the novel in his “An Eco-criticism Interpretation of The Old Man and the Sea”. This review analyzed the novel from the theory of evolution and Christianity point of view, which emphasized the effect of natural rules and religion on the old man’s consciousness to nature. 源:自'吹冰.·论,文;网·www.chuibin.com/

Although many scholars have revealed the ecological significance in The Old Man and the Sea, many of them have tried to explore the old man’s root of eco-criticism such as: the theory of evolution and religion. Others like Wang Nuo have illustrated the relationship between the old man and nature as a contradiction, where he both loves nature and enjoys conquering it. In this thesis, it is held that the relationship between the old man and nature is that the old man is included in nature, and being a part of nature, he is identified with non-human beings. While on the other hand, the old man suffers from alienation from other people, which is another relationship in the ecosphere as a whole.

3. A Brief Review of Eco-criticism and Deep Ecology

Eco-criticism is a new literary term that deals with the relationship between human world and non-human nature. According to Cheryll Glotfetly, the founder of eco-criticism in the USA, eco-criticism can be defined as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Glotfelty, 1996: 16)

It was in the 1970s that eco-criticism was first brought into American literary criticism field. William Rueckert, a famous American literary critic, first put up the word “Eco-criticism” in his book Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Eco-criticism. Professor Cherlly Glotfelty revived the word “Eco-criticism” by pointing out that it can be considered as a literary theory which is going to promote “the study of nature writing” (Glotfelty, 1996: 13). Glen Love agreed with him in his speech Revaluing Nature: Toward an Ecological Literary Criticism. 

Eco-criticism is a subsection of eco-criticism. Arne Naess, who coined the term “deep ecology”, said that “shallow ecology movement fights against pollution and resource of depletion” (Naess, 1989: 22). Different from “shallow ecology”, “deep ecology” offers “a normative critique of human activity and institution, and seeks a fundamental change in the dominant worldview and social structure of modernity” (Katz, 2000: ix).文献综述