جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « biocentrism » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

In recent decades, due to the crises created in nature by humans, the review of the relationship between humans and nature has gained special importance. The existing gap between environmental damage and its reverberations has resulted in people’s lack of attention to the consequences of environmental destruction. By applying ecocriticism and relying on concepts such as anthropocentrism, biocentrism, deep ecology and shallow ecology, the present study, for the first time, compares the two novels, Ahle Ghargh (1989), by Moniro Ravanipour and Animal Dreaams (1990) by Barbara Kingsolver. While introducing deep ecology as postmodern environmental ethics, the research completely rejects the domination of anthropocentric ideology and considers self- realization and identification with nature to be the only way out of environmental crises. Ravanipour and Kingsolver suffer from eco-trauma caused by environmental destruction and they try to take an effective step in improving deficiencies in nature. Eco-trauma inspires both novelists to deal with the damage that humans, knowingly or unknowingly, cause to nature. The study aims to demonstrate the dominance of anthropocentric ideology, which brings a self-seeking and self-interested attitude, strongly causing the destruction of nature. By relying on biocentrism, deep ecology has no concern other than preserving the environment and its resources while it avoids damage to the environment with the aim of gaining profit.

Issues and topics related to nature and the environment has attracted the attention of a large number of theorists and critics. What has made the human mind focus for a long time is the importance of preserving nature, plant and animal species, which play a very essential role in maintaining the health of the human soul. Since the conflation of humanities and natural sciences results in the investigation of the relationship between man, nature and their intimacy, the research aims to reveal the deep and unbreakable bond by focusing on the novel of Animal Dreams. The present article, by adopting the ecopsychological approach, examines the novel and attempts to elaborate on the positive effects that intimacy with the environment has on the human psyche. The study aims to identify and heal the damage caused by the separation of man from nature and its serious mental and psychological consequences by using concepts such as biophilia, ecological unconscious and ecopsychology, which were first proposed by Theodore Roszak, and Edward, O. Wilson in the field of ecopsychology. 

Background of the Study:

 Considerable investigation has been done on Animal Dreams (1990), Barbara Kingsolver’s outstanding work. Despite the abundance of existing findings from the perspective of ecocriticism and ecofeminism, no research has so far attempted to analyze this novel with an ecopsychological approach. In this section, we will limit ourselves to mentioning several cases. Marwa Hussein Ahmed Abdelfattah, in his dissertation titled “An Ecocritical Reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams and Prodigal Summer”, using Bakhtinian dialogics and Timothy Morton’s ecological theory examines these two novels. Theda Wrede, in her article titled, “Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams: Ecofeminist Subversion of Western Myth” (2012), which printed in Feminist Ecocriticism: Environment, Women, and Literature, reviews the myth of the West in Animal Dreams and studies its impact on the formation of the land, women, and cultural minorities. In The Ecofeminist Power of Metamorphosis: Mythic Bonds between the Feminine and the Natural in Barbara Kingsolver’s Fiction, Hayley Knowlton, illustrates how women strives to restore and improve the environment of their hometown, rather than try to pursue a utopia. Priscillia Leder in her prominent book entitled Seeds of Change (2010), provides a complete summary of Barbara Kingsolver’s life. Referring to different periods of her life, the author reviews her literary works, including her novels, articles and poems. Many critics blame Kingsolver for her hopeful outlook which is accompanied by bitter realities. Catherine Himmelwright in her article “Gardens of Auto Parts American Western Myth and narrative American Myth in The Bean Trees”, expands her argument on how Kingsolver re-imagines and retells patriarchal myths. Himmelwright illustrates how Kingsolver in The Bean Trees uses Native American myths to neutralize the traditional contradiction between a liberal and adventurous western man and a passive, static, domestic woman. Pamela H. Demory in her article entitled “Into the Heart of Light: Barbara Rereads Heart of Darkness” (2002), introduces Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible as a reflection of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. She believes that in both novels, the white agents of foreign powers are often soulless and corrupt. Both novels present an Africa which is both seductive and dangerous; a completely alien land for Western and deadly for those who cannot adapt to it (181). Nanthinii M. and Dr. V. Bhuvaneswar in their conspicuous article “Rethinking Climate Change: Cli-fi Dynamic in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour” (2015), seek to investigate Kingsolver’s prominent climate fiction. They combine the story with real climate change in the world and express beliefs and disbeliefs to explain the global catastrophe. Such perceptions help to revise existing beliefs about climate change as well as symbolically induce an urgent need to solve environmental problems.

In recent decades, a field called ecopsychology has emerged for studying the relationship between our psyche and both nature and environmental crisis. The historian, Theodore Roszak (1933-2011), is credited for coining the term ecopsychology. Roszak argues that “its goal is to bridge our culture’s long-standing, historical gulf between the psychological and the ecological, to see the needs of the planet and the person as a continuum” (qtd. in Worthy 115). Ecopsychology deals with how emotional connections to nature are developed and gives feeling, harmony, eternity and stability. This approach examines ancient and modern cultures that have a history of being embraced by nature such as Buddhism and Hinduism. According to Darlyne G. Nemeth “Ecopsychology: The interaction between psychology and environmental protection is an inspiring concept” (2015 x). Ecopsychologists believe that the widespread destruction of the environment causes great sorrow and aggravation in people and intensifies their frustration

The findings of this article propose a new perspective from which Animal Dreams (1990) can be read and analyzed. In this work, Kingsolver has depicted relationships between the characters and their varied views towards nature from a new perspective. While proving the effects of closeness, friendship and living in nature on human psyche, the study for the first time introduces new concepts such as ecopsychotherapy and ecotherapy in the field of literary criticism. The researcher believes that by combining other theories from the field of psychology with ecological approach, a new theoretical model can be invented for studying literary works from an environmental perspective. Relying on the two key concepts, proposed by Theodore Roszak and Edward O. Wilson, which are ecological unconscious and biophilia, the researcher admits that the surrounding environment, living conditions, cultural level and social status of people are very important in the formation and development of these two inherent phenomena. The researcher believes that, since the ecological unconscious is present in all humans from birth, man’s condition and lifestyle overshadows the active or passive nature of this phenomenon. Dr. Homer and his daughters are somehow connected with nature in one way or another, and this deep connection always has a healing effect for their souls. The bond of the doctor’s family with nature is unbreakable and very colorful. Nature is the consolation of their pains and suffering; moreover,  playing the role of ecopsychotherapy. Dr. Homer tries to minimize the great sadness of losing his wife by taking photographs and being in nature. Cody fights environmental destruction in Greece, and Holy the youngest daughter moves to Nicaragua to train farmers and restore nature which is a kind of ecotherapy. The presence of ecological unconscious and biophilia is quite evident in Dr. Homer’s family, while in Emiliana’s family, the situation is just the reverse. The researcher considers the lifestyle of Emiliana’s family as the reason for their passive interest in nature. In order to earn money, they cut the heads of peacocks and prepare their feathers for sale. The indiscriminate hunting of peacocks has put them at risk of extinction, while this issue is not the least important for Emiliana’s family. Kellen, Kirti and Meysen mercilessly cut peacocks’ heads off in an attempt of non-inert brutality. Animal Dreams, is the pioneer of the ecological awakening of novelists such as Barbara Kingsolver, in which the relationship between man and nature is reflected very deeply and seriously, introducing a value system based on nature.

As a prominent American novelist, James A. Michener wrote twenty-six novels and won several literary prizes, including the Pulitzers Prize for Fiction in 1948. Michener was preoccupied with the reflection of the European colonialism of North America and its detrimental environmental and ecological consequences, including deforestation and massive slaughter of wild animals, in his novels. Likewise, he exhibits the deleterious consequences of European settlement on the natural world in Chesapeake (1978). The white explorers and colonists who settle in the New World relentlessly burn forestlands to prepare vast lands for the cultivation of tobacco that was indeed a “cash crop” in North America. Euro-American anthropologists and researchers, including Shepard Krech III, have referred to indigenous North Americans as savage and uncivilized subjects with a cultural background that has always endorsed the devastation of nature and its inhabitants. Distorting the real cause of environmental damages, Krech asserts that Native Americans deliberately burned ancient forests, fell myriads of trees, and slaughtered countless numbers of buffaloes prior to the commencement of European settlement. He contends that the depredations of indigenes had induced the depletion of natural resources. Nevertheless, an examination of several novels of the Native American Renaissance, including Chesapeake, that mirror the adverse environmental and ecological outcomes of the European colonization of the New World, indicates that these allegations debunks these allegations. The present study seeks to challenge the claims raised by certain Euro-Americans concerning the injurious interventions of Native Americans through an ecocritical exegesis of Chesapeake. It shall be indicated that the prevalence of anthropocentrism among the European settlers induces environmental catastrophes in the New World. Moreover, this research shall exhibit that the Native Americans live in harmony with the natural world in that they believe in biocentrism rather than anthropocentrism.

Chesapeake has not been sufficiently dealt with in critical articles and books to date. Marilyn S. Severson (1996) focuses on the exploration of human tolerance that he considers an essential value in Chesapeake. She maintains that Michener is critical of various sorts of discriminations imposed on both black and white individuals in his seminal novel. Race and religion are the two significant sources of discrimination in Chesapeake. Racism is a powerful impetus instigating the white colonizers to commit genocide following the dispossession of Native Americans. African slaves are the second group of wretched individuals brutally tortured in Chesapeake. According to Severson, “the black slaves are considered a possession similar to a ship or a wagon” (100). The slightest insubordination among the miserable slaves leads to horrible forms of torture. Nonetheless, discrimination does not affect merely Native Americans and African slaves. Severson remarks that since Michener was preoccupied with the tolerance of different religious groups in most of his novels, he focuses on this issue in one of the chapters of Chesapeake. Stuart G. Leyden (1979) examines, in his article, the depiction of religious tolerance in Chesapeake. Referring to Michener as a “preachy moralistic writer,” Leyden contends that Christian morality was a significant concern for Michener. He compares Pentaquod, a fugitive Native American who abandons his hostile tribe to join a peaceful group of Native Americans, with the Quakers who are persistently persecuted by authorities in Michener’s novel. Pentaquod and the Quakers, Leyden argues, are both outcasts among their people. Ironically, these outcasts are peaceful individuals. They are coerced and beaten due to religious or political dissidence. Apart from religious tolerance, Leyden maintains, the struggle for women’s rights is also highlighted in Chesapeake. He argues that Rosalind Steed and Ruth Brinton exert themselves to end the brutal whipping of women for misconduct in that they firmly believe in human dignity and equality of men and women. Glenn Uminowicz’s article, published in a magazine title Tidewater Times (2008), compares Michener’s concern for animals in Chesapeake with the endeavors of Thornton Waldo Burgess (1874 –1965), a conservationist and an author of children’s stories, to raise the public awareness concerning the necessity of preserving non-human species. Uminowicz contends that Michener was inspired by Burgess who utilized anthropomorphism in his short stories. Similarly, he maintains, Michener uses animal characters in Chesapeake to teach his readers about the life of animals in Maryland. Hence, he argues that Michener plays the role of Burgess for adults. As Burgess wrote about a duck, named Mrs. Quack, which exerted to save her family from the guns of hunters, Michener focuses, in the eighth chapter of Chesapeake, on the perils awaiting ducks in Maryland during autumn when they arrive from Canada. According to Uminowicz, Michener portrays a family of geese headed by Onk-or to depict the complex strategies animals undertake to escape the terrible guns of white hunters.

The present study could be categorized as a qualitative literature-based research whose accomplishment required extensive academic and library research. Since this article is classified as a research project in the humanities, its critical argument rests upon a specific theoretical framework. Rather than statistical analysis, a particular approach to literary criticism was utilized to interpret the selected novel. Likewise, a variety of scholarly writings addressing ecocriticism, anthropocentrism and biocentrism were scheduled to be scrutinized prior to the commencement of writing the manuscript. Moreover, as a research work categorized under the field of applied research, this study sought to present a detailed survey of the sample. Hence, the critical investigation of the selected novel was carried out through the application of the critical concepts of anthropocentrism and biocentrism. As a qualitative research, the present study began with theoretical assumptions and subsequently focused on the representations of the critical concepts in the selected novel.

The world portrayed by Michener in Chesapeake drastically undergoes adverse alterations following the onset of European settlement. The prevalence of anthropocentrism among the European settlers induces detrimental environmental consequences in the New World. Comparing and contrasting the treatment of the natural world by the Euro-Americans and Indigenous North Americans, the present study indicates that the Natives do not make any effort to damage the environment. This research reveals that contrary to the false accusations raised by Shepard Krech III and other white researchers against Native Americans, the Indigenes in Michener’s novel prove to be preoccupied by the preservation of natural resources. The benign treatment of animals by the Natives, and their agitation upon the burning of trees by Edmund and Simon, indicates that in contrast with the European immigrants they firmly believe in biocentrism.