Abstract

Dances with Wolves describes white American soldier John Dunbar, volunteered to be stationed at the isolated civil war outpost, befriends wolves and Indians. It reveals a new point of view that the Indians who have been neglected and defamed, tries to exhibit the real appearance of the Indians and their miserable sufferings. It describes in the "westward movement", whites plunder and destruction of the western natural resources, the lost of man’s inner world and harmonious and happy life of the Sioux. 

This paper will study Dances with Wolves from an eco-critical perspective and find out how this novel mirrors ecological phenomenon, make a contrastive analysis of the modern Americans’ and ancient Indians’ exploitation and protection of the nature, the imbalance of social ecology, the lost and return of spiritual world. It calls for modern people to respect nature and try to preserve it, like the Indians, and advocates that human beings should return to nature and identify with its healing power over the human spiritual world.

Key words : Dances with Wolves; eco-criticism; ecological thought

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1.Introduction1

1.1Background of the study1

1.2An overview of Dances with Wolves2

1.3Eco-criticism3

1.4 Significance of the study5

2.Literature Review6

3.Ecological Thought of Dances with Wolves 7

3.1 Ecological symbol—the Sioux7

3.2 Returning to nature—Dunbar 10

3.3 The metaphor of human centralism—white soldiers12

4. Conclusion14

References16