摘 要

《野性的呼唤》是美国著名作家杰克伦敦最富盛名的小说，全书立足于生态批评视角，围绕当时社会风靡一时的淘金热展开叙述，描述了一只来自文明世界的狗—巴克，在主人的虐待下逐步回到荒野的过程。本文通过描述人类与动物之间的关系及人类虐待和残害动物的行为，严正批判在人类社会长期占统治地位的人类中心主义思想，呼吁人类应该尊重自然，与自然和谐相处。本文试图从生态批评学角度，对《野性的呼唤》中所体现的杰克伦敦的生态文明观从以下三个部分进行探索与剥析。第一部分主要是对生态批评理论起源及发展的介绍。第二部分主要通过对比巴克主人的自私、伪善，以及巴克的忠诚、智慧，坚毅的性格特征，揭示人类中心说日益明显的弊端。第三部分通过分析淘金者代表与巴克之间病态的关系以及桑顿与巴克之间和谐的伙伴关系，点明本文的中心思想：人类应重新审视自身本质，以及人在自然界中的地位和人与自然之间的关系，倡导人类应该从生态整体利益出发,承担起保护自然的责任，从而创造出一种人与自然和谐相处,人类回归大自然的状态。

关键词：人类中心论；生态批评学；人性; 野性

Abstract

The Call of the Wild is famous American realistic writer Jack London's most prestigious fiction, under the social background of the gold rush which is all the rage at that time, the returned to the wild under his master's abused. The paper written in seemingly a dog, but actually reflected reality of the human world, by describing the relationship between animals and human beings and the behavior which human beings abused animals cruelly, solemnly criticized the dominance of Anthropocentrism which existed in human society for a long time. This paper attempts to explore ecological civilization concept of Jack London in The Call of the Wild from the perspective of Eco-criticism on the following three parts. The first part mainly introduces the origin and development of ecological criticism theory. In the second part, by analyzing the characteristics of human beings and animals to explore the ideal relationship between human and nature in the current social background. The third part aims to summarize the final destination of human and animal, through the comparison to summarize central idea of this paper: human beings should assume the responsibility to protect nature, respect for nature, and get along well with nature.

Key Words: Anthropocentrism; Eco-criticism; Nature; Wild.

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Theoretical Basis 3

2.1 The Origin and Development of Eco-criticism 3

2.2 Application of Eco-criticism 4

3 Comparison of Wildness and Humanity 6

3.1 The Intelligent Buck as the Representative of Wildness 6

3.2 The Morbid Humanity Embodied on Golden Diggers 7

3.3 The Return of Wildness in Humanity 10

4 The Relationship Between Animals and Human Beings 12

4.1 The Unhealthy Relationship Between Buck and Wicked Master 12

4.2 The Rehabilitation of Harmonious Eco-relationship 13

4.3 Comparison of Eco-criticism and Anthropocentrism 14

5 Conclusion 16

References 17

Acknowledgements 18

The Return to the Nature:

The Study of Call of the wild from the Perspective of Eco-criticism

1 Introduction

Jack London is one of the most prestigious writer in the American literature history. He was born in a bankrupt farmer family in San Francisco, California, USA. He published many short stories since 1900 and he was be considered a socialist writer because his works mostly with socialist overtones, but there are also many people think he is expressive individualism and public philosophy of naturalism. His works are not only in the widely circulated in the United States, but also by the welcome of people all around the world, is one of the most popular foreign writers that Chinese readers deeply love.

The Call of the Wild is the most famous novel created by Jack London. The story mainly describes a strong brave dog Buck came back to the primitive life from the human civilization. Buck is a very strong dog with a 140 pound weight and he grew up in south, a judge’s home. In there, Buck enjoyed a prosperous life, pivotal status and universal respect, but in a very time which gold rush was all the rage, everything started to change for Buck. He was abducted by judge’s gardener, and then he was sold to a sweater guy. With a hint of aristocratic, Buck suffered a cruel treatment for the first time; Followed hitting by a rod again and again, he lost his conscious, gradually he was aware of that was meaningless to fight against the man who has rod. From this point, the author think that this rod actually stands for a rule, a rule which the weak must obey the strong, a rule which the relationship between men and animals were destined to be unable to get along harmoniously. It also can be considered a key which make Buck start to know the original nature and open the door to Buck return to the nature; Meanwhile, it also woke up the wildness in Buck’s deep heart. Except experiencing a serious horrible things, such as badly beaten by his different masters, painfully competed by other dogs, Buck also lived a short and happy life. he met Thornton who brought happiness and hope to him. However, happiness always is transient, Thornton’s death became the last straw to Buck, the most primitive wild of him was inspired, he returned to the wild and grew into a real wolf gradually.