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毕业论文（设计）用纸On Hemingways Eco-consciousness inThe Old Man and the SeaIntroductionAs one of the greatest libertarians of America in the 20th century, Hemingway left precious spiritual wealth. The central task of this paper is to explore Hemingways representations of nature and his ecological attitude toward nature in his masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea. In this work, Hemingway is greatly with nature. This thesis consists of five parts. Part one introduces the author and the outline of his work. The second part gives a survey of Hemingways life experiences in nature, pointing out that Hemingway is a writer with ecological consciousness and his life is always related to the great nature. The third part reveals Hemingways ecological consciousness in his works. The fourth part focuses on the analysis of the ecological thought implied in Hemingways famous work The Old Man and the Sea. The last part concludes that Hemingway is a writer with ecological consciousness. His ideas of the mutuality between human and nature illustrate what modern environmental movements advocate.1 The Author and His Works1.1 Hemingway and His Major NovelsErnest Hemingway is generally acknowledged as one of the most influential novelist of the twentieth century. Because of his personal nature experiences, most of his works are about nature, especially his masterpiece, The Old Man and the Sea. Ernest Hemingway is a giant of modern literature. Among twentieth-century American fiction writers, his work is most often compared to that of his contemporaries William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Combined with his outstanding short stories, Hemingways four major novelsThe Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952)comprise a contribution to modern fiction that is far more substantial than Fitzgeralds and that approximates Faulkners. Hemingways major works feature simpler structures and narrative voices/personae. As or more important, Hemingways style, with its consistent use of short, concrete, direct prose and of scenes consisting exclusively of dialogue, gives his novels and short stories a distinctive accessibility that is immediately identifiable with the author.1.2 The Outline of The Old Man and the SeaThe Old Man and the Sea, is one of Ernest Hemingways most ecologically resonant texts. The story is of man without accessories or props against the nature. The author gives in minute detail the tricks and methods that the old man employs to catch the fish. However, the fish is no ordinary fish, it possesses immense strength and will power. Deeper meanings sweep through the story, questioning and exploring the timeless battle between man and nature. The old man eats raw fish, drinks seawater on occasion, and lives in a shack. He goes bare-footed. He sleeps on old newspapers and wears heavily patched clothes. This description tells us that he is poor certainly. But Santiago is content with the simplicity imposed by his poverty. All these details express his contentment with the simple life and his feeling of returning to nature. In this novel, Hemingway began to decide to return to nature instead of simply eulogizing nature and sympathizing with nature, marking a change in the maturity of his view of the relationship between man and nature.Some existentialists emphasis on the courage and endurance of the old man in face of the inevitable defeat and death while other critics have shown Hemingways ties to feminism. Yet this paper, in the exploration of Hemingways writings, employs the approach of eco-consciousness, which is particularly aspirate to an examination of literature in the context of globally environmental predicament. By writing such an essay we hope to gain a view of Hemingways ecological consciousness from an ecocritical standpoint and suggest a way to a better understanding of Hemingway as a writer who concerns more about the interconnectedness between human and the non-human rather than mans domination over other forms of life. This study is based on the materials I collected and my analysis will operate primarily at a textual level. My use of literary theories will be illustrative and subordinated to the textual analysis.2 Hemingways Life Experiences in NatureIn his introduction to Hemingway and the Natural World, Fleming argues that “few authors in history have been so closely identified with the natural world as Ernest Hemingway” (Fleming, 1999). The fact is that Hemingways whole life has never been alienated from the natural world. As a small child, he was taken every summer to his parents northern Michigan vacation property where he would later spend his happy time. Meanwhile his father introduced him to an appreciation of nature. He was taught how to camp, hunt, and fish. Therefore Hemingway grew up with a persistent need to be in the natural world. For Hemingway, nature is a spiritual remedy, wildness bears something that is right, something we are missing. As told through Bakers biography of Hemingway, when Hemingway finished a book he immediately escaped to Key West in Florida fishing, hunting, and shooting, by which he could recover his energy and inspiration of writing. An apparent instance from Hemingways stories is Nick Adam, a semi-autobiographical character of Hemingway in Big Two-Hearted River, who, hurt by war, finally cured his mental imbalance from all humanity in the presence of the natural world.Adventuring in nature, traveling across the world, and bullfighting in Spain present Hemingways real outlook about nature. The following part will examine the close relationship between Hemingway and nature in order to trace his nature complex and his eco-consciousness in detail.2.1 Hemingway in Youth2.1.1 Hemingways Experiences in YouthHemingway was born in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. A year after his birth the whole family went to their summer cottage in northern Michigan, a place that was endowed with beautiful scenery and close to the natural environment where the child could play, eat, sleep with a kind of passionate enjoyment and later spent his happy time. The great nature had always been attracting Hemingway and he had been engaged in careful physical observation of the natural world ever since he was a little child. In the autumn of 1903, when Hemingway was only a child of four years old, he went to the kindergarten and joined the Nature Study Group organized by his father, Dr. Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, a highly-respected physician and unusually keen amateur naturalist devoted to hunting and fishing. Every Saturday morning in the spring, little Hemingway would stride manfully with the older children to the forest to collect some specimens or to the thickets on the river bank to get to know the birds, even though he, at a much earlier age, had greatly given his mother a big surprise by “correctly identifying seventy-three birds in the Birds of Nature volume” (Baker, 1969). So there is no wonder Hemingways house was always seen to be decorated with all kinds of animal specimens.2.1.2 Hemingways Eco-consciousness in YouthBrought up by his father-Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, a lover of outdoor life，Hemingway was firmly guided towards nature, fishing and hunting. When Hemingway was very young he was taken every summer form his home to his parents northern Michigan vacation property，where he would spend the happiest time of his boyhood. His father told him to respect the animals he killed and utilize them fully. Hence we could not be surprised to find many specimens on the shelves of Hemingways home such as butterflies, birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects. Similarly, young Hemingway was lectured “on the needless destruction of harmless animals” when he and a friend killed a porcupine. According to Carlos Baker, “having shot it.they were now obliged” to cook and eat the porcupine (Baker, 1969). Later Hemingway instructed his son Jack the lesson, “Never waste fish, Schatz, its criminal to kill anything you arent going to eat” (Jack, 1986). This respect for the proper use of nature is presented in many Hemingways writings. Hemingway once wrote that my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather were all hunters and fishermen and it is impossible for people who do not care to hunt or to fish to realize how those who do feel about it.After Hemingway moved to Paris in 1921, his passion for nature seemed to have been waning. Living in Paris he made a conscious effort to attain an informal cultural education to compensate his skipped formal education by not attending college. However, Hemingways nature is nature. When he read the books “recommended by Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound” and viewed “the pictures at the Louver and the Luxembourg Gardens, Hemingway continued to pursue the outdoor life, as his published journalism from the period attest” (Jack, 1986). Tuna fishing in Spain, trout fishing in Switzerland, hiking in Germany, skiing in Switzerland and game shooting across the continent took much of Hemingways time and brought him a lot of pleasure.Personal experiences in many civilized places of natural beauty provided the great writer with plentiful materials on the writing of the beauty of nature. On the one hand, Hemingway respects and praises the beauties of nature, and shows great concern for the damaged nature, but, on the other hand, nature described by Hemingway also has an aspect of severity and cruelty. So nature described by Hemingway is mans adversary, and provides a stage for man to display his courage. While on the other hand, Hemingway regards nature as something with which man must strive for harmony. The harmony, diversity and symbiosis in the natural world are all important things that have the ability to stimulate our spiritual enjoyment. A man who walks barefoot, who eats raw fish, who suffers pain, and who does penance, is the most obvious spokesman for Hemingways eco-philosophical ideas. Everything in the sea is filled with beauty. Through the facts mentioned above, we can come to the conclusion that Hemingway is always closely identified with great nature. This contributes very much to the formation and development of Hemingways deep ecological consciousness.2.2 Hemingways Experiences in Midlife and Old AgeAs a lover of country, a writer and a naturalist, Hemingway was a deeply spiritual man in his attachments to places. A few months before he died, Hemingway told an interviewer, “To know and love nature is a simpler and higher thing than to know the geology of the rocks and the chemistry of trees” (Williams, 1999). In the unpublished of Death of the Afternoon, Hemingway writes that in his boyhood, all of northern Michigan was forested, and clear streams abounded. The clear-cutting of the forests and the building of highways, along with the increased fishing of the streams, changed the character of the land. Family farms were lost as young men went into the cities for jobs. The real “heart” vanished from a land Hemingway had loved as a boy. Nobody who did not know that original “heart” can understand it once it is gone.Hemingway likes travelling. During his travels in Europe, Africa, and the American West, Hemingways concept of nature expanded to include sights, experience, and activities that he could only imagine during his sheltered Oak Park and Petoskey boyhood”(ibid.). As his notion of the world changed, so did his concept of nature. The African wild animals that had been part of his imaginative experience now became reality. His new adventures like the bullfight of Spain expanded his concept of how mankind related to nature.In 1933, Hemingway realized his hunters dream by taking an African safari with his traveling companion as well as his guide Philip Percival, whose brother “Blayney had written two books based on his experiences as an African game warden, A Game Rangers Note Book (1924), and A Game Ranger on Safari (1928)”. Guided by the accounts of Blayney Percival, other writers of safari literature, and his own experiences in African, Hemingway wrote his new novels Green Hills of Africa in 1935.As Hemingway aged, he turned toward home. Through Nick Adams replies to his sons suggestion that “We could all be buried in France”, Hemingway says, “I dont want to be buried in France but at the ranch” (Hemingway, 1987). In the late 1950s, Hemingway moved from Cuba to central Idaho and died in his native land. There he would have his final union with nature, “lying under the pine trees in the small country cemetery of Ketchum, across the river from his last American home” (Fleming, 1999). In Hemingways lifetime, the memories of wild nature, the knowledge of wild nature, his need for wild nature never left him.3 Hemingways Eco-consciousness in His WorksErnest Hemingway is productive in his writing of novels, novelettes and short stories. Today, his works have been interpreted by literary critics from different perspectives, among which the code hero image, death consciousness, nihilism, alienation and the artistic features are usually focused upon. Nevertheless, still very little academic energy has been dedicated to the study of his works with the literary approach of ecocriticism. As a matter of fact, Hemingway is a great writer with deep ecological consciousness. Living in the worsening situation of ecocrises in the present era, it is of great significance to reexamine some of Hemingways narrative fictions through an ecocritical point of view, which is what this thesis will be devoted to. And in order to probe into the ecological consciousness of the great writer, we may first as well take a close look at the intimate relation between Ernest Hemingway and the natural world.3.1 Hemingways Eco-consciousness in Green Hills of AfricaSantiago, in The Old Man and the Sea, feels sorry for the birds because he cannot “hoist the sail and take you in with the small breeze that is rising” (Hemingway, 1987). The narrator of Green Hills of African relates how his own pain from a broken arm caused him to identify with the suffering of a bull elk that might not be shot cleanly. In Hemingways first venture into nonfiction, Green Hills of Africa, which chronicles his adventures on safari in the early 1930s, the readers can see the beauty of the wilderness threatened by the incursion of man. Woodcuts, scattered throughout the book, add another dimension to this view of the hard-edged, rugged world of wild Africa. In this “absolutely true” nonfiction that was based on his own hunting expedition to Tanganyika, the great writer, on one hand, described the beauty of the forests, the prairie, the mountains, the blue sky and all kinds of wild birds and animals, the exciting hunting experiences and the simple yet civilized country life in the ancient place; on the other, he presented his disappointment towards the so-called modern civilization and his strong yearning towards the natural beauty through the vivid depictions.3.2 Hemingways Eco-consciousness in His NovelsHemingways eco-consciousness is also used in his works. Based on his personal traveling adventure in Spain, Hemingway got the materials of Death in the Afternoon, a book about Spanish bullfighting, in which his famous Iceberg Principle was put forward. Because of his true hunting experiences in Eastern Africa, he was able to write the novels Green Hills of Africa and True at First Sight, the short stories “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “An African Story”. And the great writers life in Cuba, his close relationship with the sea and the fishes provided him with rich materials on the famous work The Old Man and the Sea. Through the content of Hemingways biography and the facts mentioned above, we can come to the conclusion that the whole life of the great writer is always closely identified with the great nature. This contributes very much to the formation and development of Hemingways deep ecological consciousness. And consequently, the great writers ecologically-oriented consciousness is well reflected in some of his literary works, with the typical examples of The Old Man and the Sea and three short stories, namely, “Big Two-Hearted Rive”, “An African Story” and “Fathers and Sons”, upon which incarnate eco-consciousness vividly. In addition to the spiritual enjoyment, what the great writer gained from his personal traveling experiences were also some other reexaminations of the relationship between man and nature.4 Hemingways Eco-consciousness in The Old Man and the SeaThe Old Man and the Sea, the representative work of Ernest Hemingway, chronicles the simple story of how Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, fights bravely for three consecutive days with a giant marlin and later a group of cruel sharks in the sea. The classic novelette became an instant success and immediately soared to the top of the best-seller list and remained there for a long time of six months after it was published. The work was awarded the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and played a very significant role in Hemingways selection for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. The time-honored masterpiece, which is considered as “a very profound and perfect artwork, and has been publicly dubbed the most abstruse work depicting the sea and the fisherman ” (Wang Nuo, 2003), has a warm critical reception and is usually hailed as Hemingways best work by many influential critics, just as William Faulkner claimed,“ Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us. I mean his and my contemporaries. This time, he discovered God, a Creator” (Faulkner, 1987).4.1 Santiago as an Embodiment of Deep EcologyIn Hemingways Revaluing Nature: Toward an Ecological Criticism, Glen Love states that “The most important function of literature today is to red