Abstract

Ecocriticism is nearly the latest critical tendency in literature. It appeared in Britain and America in 1970s and had a rapid development in 1990s. Arousing human beings’ ecological consciousness is the most practical meaning of ecocriticism. To analyze literature works from the ecological aspect has both theoretical and practical meanings. Jack London is an outstanding American novelist in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. He was famous for his North Novels and Animal Novels. These works all reveals his ecological awareness. Therefore, with the ecological approach, this thesis studies one of Jack London’s works To Build a Fire to analyze the states of natural environment and society in wilderness. It aims to reflect the relationship between human beings and nature, as well as the relationship between human beings and society from the description.

Key Words: ecocriticism  ecological aspect  ecological awareness  Jack London  To Build a Fire

摘 要

生态批评是一种较新的文学批评形式，它出现于20世纪70年代的英美，并且在20世纪90年代得到快速的发展。生态批评的主要任务就是探讨人与自然的关系。生态批评最现实的意义是唤醒人们的生态意识。通过生态批评来分析作品具有理论意义和现实意义。杰克•伦敦是19世纪末20世纪初美国杰出的小说家。他因北方小说和动物小说而著名。这些作品都能体现他的生态意识。因此，本论文从生态批评的角度解读《生火》，分析旷野的自然生态和社会生态。本文通过分析描写来讨论小说中所反映的人与自然、人与社会的关系。

关键词：生态批评 生态视角 生态思想 杰克•伦敦 生火   

1 Introduction
Ecocriticism, a new critical approach, which found its voice in the 1970s and gained great development in the 1990s, studies the relationship between literature and nature. With many crises arising, a great number of scholars begin to show their passions in ecocritical approach. Therefore, ecocriticism has obtained a fast development in the literary field.
    There is no doubt that ecocriticism has great impact on literary criticism, because of its new critical angle. By using this new critical approach, scholars have a new experience to criticize literary works. Thus, the readers own different feelings towards the same book. Due to the development of ecocriticism, lots of ecocritical experts have started to become famous. For example, Lawrence Buell and Greg Garrard in western countries. In China, Lu Shuyuan as an excellent ecocritical advocate made a great contribution to the development of ecocriticism.