重返平衡，寻求和谐后殖民生态视域下《神秘的河流》与《石乡行》比较思考

ll was surrounded by a strong sense of insecuritythroughout his whole life.With a common and humble birth,Thornhill was coldlytreated by his families and people around him.Lacking any start-up capital,nor thesupport from families and friends,there is almost few opportunities for people of hiskind in an industrial London.Therefore,Thornhill has to work for others to fendhimself.During the process,he suffered unfair treatment,experiencing tears andsadness mixed life,and thus was strongly fed up with such life.He did not want to livesuch a bleak life anymore.Therefore,when first saw the Hawsberry,he has a strongdesire to own a piece of land.Then it was a period of fighting time.To take up land,clearing all obstacles,the whites zeroed their gun on the natives(Ye 82).They slaughtered most of the Aboriginals,occupying the land as they wished.However,during the process of land fighting,some changes happened.Not only the relationshipbetween the natives and the whites are irrecoverable,the relationship between Thornhilland his families also deteriorated.which contribute to their estrangement.On the otherhand,though the whites owned the land,they never become the true master of it.Thereis always a sense of alienation between them and the land.

Chapter Six Conclusion

6.1 Major Findings of This Study

This thesis studies the imbalances in The Secret River and Journey to the StoneCountry.With the help of postcolonial ecocriticism-related theories,we can concludethat the imbalance caused by the whites inflicts damage on the Aboriginals’natural,social and spiritual ecology.At the same time,the whites themselves are also sufferingfrom it.Although both the whites and the Aboriginals were confronted with theimbalance,the different strategies to deal with the collapsed balance can give rise to thedifferent outcomes,with one regained balance and inner peace,the other trapped ininward disturbance for the rest life.

In the two novels,the Aborigines’peaceful and harmonious life was disturbed bythe white colonists.On landing the Australian land,they inordinately plundered thenatural resources,shaking the balance between humans and land.“In the process ofcolonial violence,the environment is a non-human witness”(Elizabeth and Handley 6).Besides,they crashed the natives’social order.Due to the while colonists’desires forwealth and rights,the alienated human relationship replaced precious mateship.Whatpeople were concerned about was only themselves.Most significantly,the whitecolonists trampled the aborigines’culture.By degrading the aboriginals’lifestyles,thewhites deprived the natives of cultural confidence,making them suffer an identitycrisis.

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