The River Exists, Therefore I Am: Ecocriticism, Nature and Human Nature in Willa Cather’s 'The Enchanted Bluff'

Alireza Sardari

doi:10.15294/rainbow.v9i2.39102

Abstract

Today, environmental degradation and nature preservation are among the most discussed topics in media, academia, and beyond. Adopting Glotfelty’s ecocritical approach, this article investigates the relationship between human culture and the natural world in Willa Cather’s The Enchanted Bluff (2009). The present study determines the different representations of nature along with the ecological issues to (a) heighten the ecological awareness and (b) to provide a fresh perspective to look at the natural world; therefore, this article shifted its focus from the anthropocentric attitude to the biocentric and focuses on nature and its correlation with humanity. This paper challenges the human/nature binary to help us look at the natural world stripped of established stereotypes. The results indicate that nature is an indivisible portion of human identity; furthermore, humankind and the natural world are codependent and interconnected; the results also emphasize that preserving the natural world is, indeed, the prerequisite for the protection of humanity.

Highlights

Humankind's relationship with nature is a reciprocal one, but it is not necessarily equal; that is, despite the enormous pressure that humanity has exerted on nature, but the natural world has always met human needs without expectations
Sometimes the natural world carries out a passive role in stories, meaning that only humans perform an active and dynamic role in the narrative, but this is untrue to Willa Cather's stories; instead, the element of nature is very integral and fundamental, especially in The Enchanted Bluff (2009)
Using Glotfelty’s (1996) 3-step ecocritical approach, this paper investigates the different representations of the natural world and ecological issues in Willa Cather’s TheEnchanted Bluff (2009)

Summary

Introduction

Humankind's relationship with nature is a reciprocal one, but it is not necessarily equal; that is, despite the enormous pressure that humanity has exerted on nature (such as the increasing production of plastic materials and the release of it in nature), but the natural world has always met human needs without expectations. Humankind has always used the natural world _like caves in the distant past_ as a shelter to survive the dangers such as storms, wars, et cetera. Sometimes the natural world carries out a passive role in stories, meaning that only humans perform an active and dynamic role in the narrative, but this is untrue to Willa Cather's stories; instead, the element of nature is very integral and fundamental, especially in The Enchanted Bluff (2009). An active and dynamic role in the sense that Cather shows a Nature that is alive and independent from human presence. Nature in the p-ISSN: 2252-6323 e-ISSN: 2721-4540 story possesses inconsistent behaviors; the natural world sometimes kindly supports humankind (the bluff as a shelter in the time of war) and sometimes rebels against humans (the storm in the time of peace)

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Results

Conclusion