从生态主义角度分析《去吧-摩西》.doc

邯郸学院本科毕业论文

题 目 从生态主义角度分析
《去吧，摩西》
学 生
学 号 014103081015
指导教师 副教授
年 级 2008级本科
专 业 英语
二级学院 外国语学院

邯郸学院外国语学院
2012年5月

B.A. Thesis

An Analysis of Go Down, Moses
From Ecologism

By
Yu Yue

Supervisor: Associate Professor Jian Haihong

A Thesis Submitted to School of Foreign Languages
Of Handan College in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement for the Degree
Of Bachelor of Arts
Handan, China
May, 2012

郑重声明

本人的毕业论文（设计）是在指导教师简海红的指导下独立撰写完成的。如有剽窃、抄袭、造假等违反学术道德、学术规范和侵权的行为，本人愿意承担由此产生的各种后果，直至法律责任，并愿意通过网络接受公众的监督。特此郑重声明。

毕业论文（设计）作者（签名）：
年 月 日

Acknowledgements

During the writing of this thesis, I can not deny that I have gained quite a lot of instructions as well as assistance from my generous and kind-hearted teachers and buddies in the first place. To me their invaluable suggestions and heartfelt criticism are very precious and unforgettable, and I believe my thesis would have been supposed to be impossible without their sincere contributions. Therefore I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those individuals who assisted me to accomplish this paper.
First of all, the accomplishment of this paper benefits from the enlightenment of my supervisor, Lecturer Jian Haihong, whose inspiring insights, generous encouragements and enthusiastic instructions have facilitated me much throughout my thesis writing. Her penetrating and insightful comments afford me with inspiring source. She has been in constant concern about my paper, spared no pains to entertain my thesis draft. I want to show my gratitude to our Dean, Professor Wei, who teaches me the format of the thesis. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to all the three professors in the rejoin group whose careful examines and instructive suggestions really help me a lot in the process of composing. Besides, thanks for Foreign Language Department of Handan College as well as all my teachers. Thanks to their instructive guidance and comprehensive education during the four years’ schooling, I can acquire the opportunity to further study English. And I want to thank my parents. It is them who brought me up and give me financial support through my college life. Finally, my great gratitude also goes to all my friends, including my roommates, who encouraged me in the process of writing this thesis and who has always been there for me every step of my way.

Abstract

Go Down, Moses is William Faulkner’s masterpiece which describes the family history of McCaslin. The hunting and growing experience of Isaac McCaslin plays a key role in this novel. With the comprehensive description of the wilderness and nature, this novel is considered as a masterpiece of ecologism in the twentieth century.
This thesis mainly focuses on the relationship between human and nature from ecologism. It emphasizes three aspects —the relationship between human and animals, the relationship between human and land, as well as the relationship between human and wilderness. Chapter One describes human’s killing of animal, which show that human’s pursuit is different from old times. Chapter Two explores that the possession of land leads to the lost of human’s nature. Chapter Three makes an ecological thinking of civilization and wilderness and it reveals the relationship between human and nature.
The analysis of Go Down, Moses from ecologism makes a great contribution to understanding the writer’s purpose for readers. Through analyzing the relationship between human and animal, land as well as wilderness, humans may understand that they should respect nature, protect nature and assume the responsibility as inhabitants in the world.

Key words: Ecologism human nature wilderness

ii

摘 要

《去吧，摩西》是威廉·福克纳的代表作，主要讲述了麦卡斯林家族的故事，其中艾萨克·麦卡斯林的成长经过在小说中起了主线作用。小说对荒野和自然的全面描述使之成为一部二十世纪生态主义的著作。
本文主要从生态主义角度思考人与自然的关系。全文从人与动物的关系、人与土地的关系及现代化文明与荒野的关系三方面进行分析。第一章通过描述人类对动物的掠杀，说明人们的追求已随社会的发展而改变。第二章通过探索人类对土地的占有，揭示了土地占有导致人类自然本性的丧失这一现象。第三章从生态主义角度分析人类文明与荒野的关系，对自然与现代化的关系进行生态主义思考并揭示人与自然之间的正确关系。
从生态主义角度分析《去吧，摩西》，读者能够更深刻的理解文意。通过分析人与动物、土地及荒野的关系，人类应懂得尊重自然，保护自然，并承担起对自然和社会的责任。

关键词：生态主义；人类；自然；荒野

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Contents

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………..…..….….i
Abstract…………………………………….…………………………………………...….…….ii
Abstract (Chinese)…………………………………………………………………………......iii
Introduction…………………………….……………………………………………….……….1
Chapter One Human and Animal………………………………..………….............................4
1.1 Human: Symbol of Civilization ………………………………………………………..4
1.2 Animal: Symbol of Nature…………................................................................................5
1.3 The Relationship Between Human and Animal……………………………………...6
Chapter Two Human and Land……......……… …………………..……..….………………...7
2.1 Human’s Possession of Land …………………………………………………….….....7
2.2 Consequences of the Possession of Land…………………………….…………….....7
2.3 Criticism of the Possession of Land……………………………………………..….....8
Chapter Three Human and Nature………………………………………………………..…..9
3.1 Intrinsic Value of Wilderness…………………………………………...……….….....10
3.2 Human’s Destruction to Wilderness…………………...………….….........................10
3.3 Ecological Thinking of Wilderness and Civilization………………...…………….11
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................12
Notes…………………………………………………………………………………..…….……14
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….…...15

Introduction

Of all William Faulkner’s major works, Go Down, Moses is one of the most remarkable novels. Scholars and critics have had an ever-lasting interest in Go Down, Moses since its publication. The rich thoughts of the novel have been researched by critics from many aspects. Go Down, Moses, a great novel of ecologism in the twentieth century, gives a comprehensive description on the wilderness and nature that make deep impressions on readers.
First of all, a large number of critics pay more attention to the unity of the novel. Because Go Down, Moses is based on seven short stories, early critics regard it as a collection of short stories. However, Olga W. Vickery’s The Novels of William Faulkner published in 1975 holds that all the stories in Go Down, Moses have certain unifying features which give the book a loosely constructed novel. Structurally the framework of each individual story is a ritual hunt. She adds that: In addition to this recurrent hunt motif, the stories are further related through their connection with the plantation. For even when the characters travel, their excursions either carry the sense of plantation life with them or produce certain repercussions within it. So Go Down, Moses is not a collection of short stories.
Besides, Go Down, Moses is often cited as one of the most significant American novels that deal with wilderness and environmental themes. Annette Kolodny’s The Lay of the Land published in 1975 states that the portrait of Isaac McCaslin and his attitude to the land should be read as a comment on the course of an entire nation’s pastoral impulse. He suggests that the land is neither possessed nor preyed up. He thinks the relationship between human and land should base on reciprocity and communality.
Southern Renaissance: The Cultural Awakening of the American South by Richard King published in 1980 states that: Go Down，Moses culminates Faulkner’s exploration of historical consciousness which began with the Flag in the Dust. With “The Bear” at its center, Go Down，Moses represents a near Perfect fusion of styles, evocation of time and place, and attention to moral context，framed by the complexities of the history and the rhythms of nature. All of Faulkner’s prior fiction points toward this artistic and moral consummation.
Leonard Lutwack’s The Role of Place in Literature published in 1984 describes the work as “most eloquent statement on behalf of the wilderness.” In Go Down, Moses, the natural environment plays a crucial role in the development of the central character. The wilderness has both educational and spiritual significance for Isaac McCaslin. He witnesses his own birth when he first enters the wilderness.
Imagining the Earth: Poetry and the Vision of Nature by John Elder published in 1985 announces Go Down, Moses one of the most profoundly descriptions of the shifting balance between man and nature in American history. With the development of the civilization, the wilderness is going to its doom.
As Linda Wagner-Martin points out in New Essays on Go Down, Moses published in 1996, criticism of the past fifteen years has begun to read the novel as something other than a collection of stories. When readers read the seven stories in Go Down, Moses as one story, they can understand the novel deeper than read it as a collection of short stories.
“Go Down, Moses and the Discourse of Environmentalism” by Judith Bryant Wittenderg in New Essays on Go Down, Moses published in 2007 indicates that wilderness is valuable not only in and of itself but also for the sort of enriching experiences it offers to responsive human. The wilderness has a great influence on the central character, Isaac McCaslin. It is his college, the place where he enters his novitiate as if witnessing his own birth. The moment in which Isaac discards the items which are the last vestiges and taints of civilization and relinquishes to the wilderness is the one in which he fully discovers the profundity of his connection to his natural surroundings.
In China, many critics have paid attention to the rich thoughts of Go Down, Moses. Pan Xiaosong’s Faulkner: Southern American Literary Master published in 1995 describes the influences of racism. The lose of humanity and the moral decline not only cause social chaos but also distort their children’s character and ruin their lives.
Isaac McCaslin’s convoluted defense of southern racism is anticipative. Xiao Minghan points out that racism lead to moral degradation in Research on William Faulkner published in 1997. Go Down, Moses tells the story of moral degradation which poisons southern civilization at the root. The tragedy of the McCaslins is based on the moral wrong—an incestuous relationship and injustice to a different race. Isaac McCaslin, the grandson of Carothers McCaslin, who decides to end the terrible racial legacy in the hope of replacing it with a better order. He repudiates his family’s heritage of guilt, refuses to assume the responsibility of the plantation, and goes back to his sources- the forest, the earth, for virtues of love, honor, and reason with which to expiate the sins of his ancestors.
Wang Nuo’s Ecological Literature of European and American published in 2003 says that people will benefit from conquering nature. However, people will also suffer from the result of going against the natural law and lose the harmonious relationship between human and nature. He calls on everyone to see himself as a part of the community and assume the responsibility as a citizen.
As Tao Jie demonstrates in American Literature and American Culture published in 2004, William Faulkner is an antiracialist hating slavery and racialism, showing sympathy and concern for blacks. In “was”—the first part of Go Down, Moses, there are two plays, one is uncle Buck ran after Tommy’s Turl like hunting a beast, the other is uncle Buddy beat Xubert in the poker play wining the booty—Tommy’s Turl’s girl friend—Tenny. The two plays expose southern slavery and racial discrimination. Although this is a comic story, it is not a parody. The embarrassment and enslavement Tommy’s Thurl suffered reflect slaves’ misery life and injustice of slavery.
Go Down, Moses is impressive because of its rich thoughts of racial, class, and its consideration of the interrelationship of the human problems. This novel gives a comprehensive description on the wilderness and nature that make deep impressions on readers. The ecological thought is so essential in this novel, but there are not deeper series of analysis and discussions on the ecological analysis. There should be a further study on the relationship between human and nature from ecologism in the novel.
This thesis mainly explores the relationship between human and animal, human and land, human and wilderness. Chapter One describes human’s killing of animal, which show that human’s pursuit is different from old times. Chapter Two explores that the possession of land leads to the lost of human’s nature. Chapter Three makes an ecological thinking of civilization and wilderness and it reveals the relationship between human and nature.
Through the research on the novel, it can be concluded that humans and animals are equal. Human should respect nature and protect nature. Everyone should see himself as a part of the community and take the responsibility as a human.

Chapter One Human and Animal

As treasures of nature, animals have lived with human beings in a cordial and harmonious atmosphere. However, with the development of the society the relationship between human and animals have changed. Humans kill animals and think that they are the controllers of nature. Hunting is the significant motif in Go Down, Moses. Before the arrival of the white man, the aim of hunting is not to kill but to move closer to nature. The hunting of people from Jefferson is just like a ceremony to the woods. But now the pure sense of hunting has gone and hunting becomes an ambiguous act with violence and cruelty. People kill Old Ben, a bear who is the representative of the nature, and the death of Old Ben symbolizes the destruction of the wilderness.
1.1 Human: Symbol of Civilization
Civilization is the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and it also helps human make progress in spiritual aspect. The development of technology makes human beings think that they are the controllers of the world and they can conquer nature with the civilization. So human is the symbol of civilization.
During the nineteenth century, hunters are the “American Natives” who live close to nature and absorb its virtues. Hunters learn how to act honorably and fairly. The law of forest is that hunter can kill as much as is necessary for his subsistence. The law is unwritten but everyone must obey it. The pattern of existence in the nature is simple and clear, but humans’ society is complex. In order to meet their need, human beings cut down trees without restraint. The hunters from Jefferson have lost their pure nature, such as honor, dignity and courage. Human pay more attention to money and power to satisfy their desires. The development of science makes people