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gathered to take turns to the Commanders’houses for fertility.Thestory was about a nightmare experience and torments of Offred in the Commander Fred’shouse after she was forced to become a machine of giving birth——“Handmaid”,andinterspersed with the memories of the her previous life as well.At the same time,the novelalso told that the Commander Fred,as a key role in the regime of Gilead,was greatlydisappointed in the new world he created.Facing the cold system,he was eager to be lovedand recognized.At the weekly Ceremony,the Commander’s Wife Serena Joy had to face her husband’s betrayal of her spirit and body.Facing all kinds of ecological,social and totalitarianproblems,everyone in the novel was miserable and felt helpless and lonely in spirit,whichexpressed the author’s concern on the current living conditions of human society.

Chapter 2 Ecocriticism and Spiritual Ecology

2.1 The Overview of Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism is a theory of literary criticism that was formed in the United States in the1970s.Ecocriticism refers to the mapping of environmental and ecological problems in thefield of literary research,which rethinks the relationship between people and ecologicalenvironment from a unique ecological perspective.

About definition,there is no uniform and accurate one of ecocriticism.Lawrence Buellmade the definition as“Ecocriticism might succinctly be defined as the study of therelationship between literature and environment conducted in a spirit commitment toenvironmentalist praxis”(1995)430.Soon afterwards,Willxiam Rueckert also definedecocriticism as“the experiment with the application of ecology and ecological concepts to thestudy of literature”(1996)114.The definition of Richard Kerridge’s in his Writing theEnvironment expressed a broad cultural connotation:

The ecocritic wants to track environmental ideas and representationswherever they appear,to see more clearly a debate which seems to betaking place,often part-concealed,in a great many cultural spaces.Mostof all,ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of theircoherence and usefulness as responses to environmental crisis.(Garrard,2004)

As ecocriticism went deeper and broader areas,most critics abandoned many views exceptretaining the term of ecocriticism.While the definition of Cheryll Glotfelty’s was widelyaccepted by most academicians,as“ecocriticism is the study of the relationship betweenliterature and the physical environment”(1996)xviii in her book of The Ecocriticism Reader.

2.2 Spiritual Ecology and Literary Criticism

In the late 19th and the early 20th century,the industrial civilization of western societygradually exposed many drawbacks,and human beings began to think about the path ofsurvival.The meaning of the“spirit”was redefined.In the opinion of Wilhelm Dilthey,the philosophy of life was mainly a reflection on the human spiritual and cultural activities,andhis philosophy of life was almost equal to the philosophy of spirit.Alfred North Whiteheadargued in early 20th century that“the novelty of environment”was consistent with“thepermanent of spirit”.The French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,who had used theconcept of“spiritual circle”,proposed that there was a spiritual circle that producedconsciousness,except the biosphere.The generation of spiritual circle reflects the changefrom material to spirit.Karl Jaspe本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。