An Analysis of the Loss of Marian in Willa Cathers A Lost Lady from the Perspective of Ecofeminism 从生态女性主义视角分析薇拉凯瑟《一个迷途的女人》中玛瑞恩的迷失文献综述

 2021-12-28 09:12

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文献综述

1.Introduction1.1 Research background In the late 20th century, the global ecological crisis has become more and more serious, and people began to reflect on the primary causes of it. American scholars took the lead in introducing ecocriticism in the field of literary research, holding the view that anthropocentrism is the ideological root of ecological crisis. Ecofeminism criticizes and reveals that the essence of anthropocentrism is androcentrism. It is because the double oppression of women and nature that makes the dissimilation of human spirit and eventually leads to the ecological crisis. Willa Cather is a world-famous female writer whose works have profound thinking and interpretation of the relationship between male and female and between human and nature.1.2 Willa Cather and A Lost LadyWilla Cather was born in a farming family in Virginia in 1873. At the age of nine, her family moved to a small town named the Red Cloud in Nebraska. This move had an effect on her mind and her sense of art. There she came into contact with the new immigrants from various European countries, which became the material of her literature. Cather published April Twilights in 1903, a book of verse, and The Troll Garden in 1905 which contains several of her best-known stories like The Sculptors Funeral and A Wagner Matinee. Her famous novels also include Alexanders Bridge, The Song of the Lark, One of Ours and so on. Taking the western frontier life as the subject matter, she created works full of local characteristics. Her works have been hailed as the pearl of American literature. In the impetuous American literary world of the 20th century, she was the keeper of artistic conscience and the embodiment of moral courage. Therefore, she is honored as the First Lady of American Literature Field and the Greatest Female Writer since the Founding of the United States.A Lost Lady is the novel of Willa Cather in her mid-career. Like the title of the novel, A Lost Lady reflects the historical transformation of the early western pioneers represented by Mr. Forrester into the commercial capitalists led by Ivy Peters through the description of a lost woman. The beautiful and young lady Marian lives in the late pioneer age. She gets married with Captain Forrester who is 25 years older than her and then lives a rich life. Her beauty and manners makes the people of the town respect her. However, after her husbands death, she cant stand the temptation of material life and falls into the wrong way. She is clear that Ivy is a selfish man in the new generation and also a destroyer of nature, but she has to rely on his help to live a better life. Because of the change of times, a lady begins to lose gradually. The novel not only shows the decline of the early pioneers under the influence of modern material civilization, but also reflects the authors dissatisfaction with the west and the whole American becoming more and more materialized.1.3 The theory of ecofeminismEcofeminism is the combination of ecology and feminism. This school of thought emerged in the 1970s and gained significant development in the 1990s with the thriving of womens movement and environment protection movement. Ecofeminism tries to find a culture that is not separated from nature, and believes that an ecologist must be a feminist. Ecofeminism opposes anthropocentrism and androcentrism and advocates changing the idea of man dominating nature. It criticizes patriarchal cultural values and celebrates the essence of women, but it is not entirely essentialist. It rejects the values that lead to exploitation, domination and aggression. Ecofeminism criticizes the male-centered knowledge framework with the goal of building an utopia that follows the principles of ecology and feminism. Ecofeminism calls on people to pay attention to the neglected needs of women in order to build a new rational and harmonious society.2.Literature reviewWilla Cather was an outstanding American writer in the first half of the twentieth century and she created many popular works in her life. Her novels have a wide range of themes which involve all aspects of the American society. She is especially famous for her description of the life of frontier settlers in the American Midwest at the end of the 19th century. A Lost Lady is an example of the kind of work Cather created. Scholars at home and abroad have already had certain research and understanding of this work.2.1Studies abroadWhen Willa Cather won the Pulitzer Prize, there were an increasing number of scholars abroad came to comment on A Lost Lady from different dimensions.Some scholars lay emphasis on the analysis of characters in the novel. For example, in Corruption of the Characters in Willa Cathers A Lost Lady, Dewi (2018) holds the view that progression may sometimes bring us difficulties or disasters, and people are unable to hide their nature. For this reason, characters such as Ivy Peters, Mrs. Forrester and so on become more ambitious to get money and success in the dirty way. Mr. Forresters death means that the era of pioneer has been changed by the era of commerce. His unselfishness, financial integrity and bravery are hard to associate with the new-values. Some scholars lay emphasis on the focus of the novel. They talk about whether the novels main concern Niel Herbert or Marian Forrester. Diane (2010) argues that Marian Forrester is the focus because the readers can get the cues from Cathers own words in Division and difference in A Lost Lady. The question arises because the author switches from a first-person narrative to a third-person narrative and the story is largely told from the perspective of Niel. Besides these themes, there are still some scholars talking about other aspects like gender or class involved in the novel. In a word, studies abroad mainly focus on the analysis of the main character Marian Forrester and the social relations or gender relations reflected in the novel.2.2Studies in ChinaCompared with foreign countries, domestic research on Cather started relatively late. In the beginning, they put emphasis on the translation of Willa Cathers works, and then scholars paid more attention to the means of artistic expression, feminism and ecologism represented in her novels.As the ecological crisis becomes more and more serious, the ecological thought contained in Cathers works has been paid more and more attention by critics. In recent years, scholars in China prefer to analyze A Lost Lady from the perspective of ecofeminism. For example, in A study of Willa Cathers novels from the perspective of ecological literary criticism, Wang Ting (2019) argues that the pursuit of a material world will destroy the earth and make it uninhabitable. Whats worse, people will be a slave to materials and their pure spirit will also be sullied. In terms of artistic expression, Liu Chunyan (2009) holds the view that using the artistic expression can help promote the character image shaping and psychological description in On the technique of symbolism in A Lost Lady. Poison Ivy is the nickname of Ivy peters. Ivy is a green plant that grows up walls or along the ground and it is a plant likes to depend on others. To name the character Ivy is to depict him as a person who likes to play up to others. The readers can easily get the idea that Ivy does not have a good image.Of course, apart from the studies above, there are many other analyses from other aspects. In conclusion, some progress has been made in the study of this work by scholars in China.2.3Need of the studyThere are many descriptions of ecological environment and its changes through the development of material civilization in A Lost Lady, so it is very meaningful to analyze this work from the perspective of ecologism. From the title of the novel, the readers can easily get what the novel talks about. Feminism is another theme of the novel, and what is the social status of women is also very necessary to be analyzed. How will the status of women change with the development of civilization? In a word, the theory of ecofeminism can help us have a comprehensive understanding of questions above.Since scholars abroad and at home have already had some researches on this novel, they are very helpful to my analysis. However, most of these scholars use the theory of ecofeminism to analyze several novels of Cather at the same time, so they do not have a detailed and comprehensive analysis of A Lost Lady. This paper focuses on A Lost Lady to have an analysis of the process of getting lost of Marian Forrester with the destruction of the ecological environment. Peoples desire for material things severely destroys the ecological environment, and they put their interest in the first place. Women are of low status and they must depend on men. When their dependence is gone, they are unable to survive on their own. In order to survive, they may get lost. The theory of ecofeminism calls for people to pay attention to ecological issues and female issue.References:Cousineau, Diane. (2010). Division and difference in A Lost Lady. Womens studies: An interdisciplinary journal, 11, 305-322.Danielle, Russell. (2016). Between the angle and the curve: Mapping gender, race, space, and identity in Willa Cather and Toni Morrison. New York: Taylor and Francis.Delany, Samuel. R. (2015). A Lost Lady and modernism, a novelists overview. Critical inquiry, 41(3), 573-595.Dwei, Nurnani. (2018). Corruption of the characters in Willa Cathers A Lost Lady. Journal of Literature, languages and linguistics, 51, 86-92.Elz, A. Elizabeth. (2003). The Awakening and A Lost Lady: Flying with broken wings and raked feathers. The southern literary journal, 35(2), 13-27.Gingrich, Brian. (2020). Willa Cathers naivete. Twentieth century literature, 66(3), 305-332.Goodman, Charlotte Margolis. (2009). Constance Fenimore Woolsons For the Major and Willa Cathers A Lost Lady. American literary realism, 41(2), 154-162.Morrow, Nancy. (2010). 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