The Comparison Between the “Moby Dick” and “The Old Man and the Sea” from the Perspective of Ecocriticism

Abstract

Ecocriticism focuses on the relationship between literature and natural environment and advocates the application of ecological concepts in literary research and the reading and criticism of literary works from the perspective of ecology. Ecocriticism takes the overall interests of the ecosystem as the highest value, opposing anthropocentrism, and holds that human and nature are equal, and that human is the son of nature and a part of nature. Through the lens of ecological criticism, this article briefly introduces the ecological criticism of positive thinking, reverse thinking and the significance of ecological criticism and analyses the protagonists in "Moby Dick" and "The Old Man and the Sea" symbolizing disparate anthropocentrism to help people better understand the two works, so that people can get rid of the values of anthropocentrism, at the meanwhile, set up the right values.