Symbiosis between Nature and Culture in Callenbach’s Ecotopia and Krakauer’s Into the Wild

Abstract

This research work examines two narratives, namely, Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975) and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild (1996) from ecocritical perspective with particular attention to symbiosis between nature and culture. This study explores various symbiotic relationships between human and non-human world by deploying the ideas developed by ecocritical scholars such as Barbara Paterson’s concept of “Symbiosis”, A.N. Whitehead’s “nature as organism”, Lawrence Buell’s “biocentrism”, and Arne Naess’s “deep ecology”. In one hand, a young boy named McCandless Into the Wild experiments with dropping out of society to see if he can live on his own in the Alaskan Wilderness. However, his obsession with the wilderness leads him to his demise. On the other hand, people in Ecotopia live with a complete sense of ecological awareness maintaining symbiotic bonding between human and non-human worlds. The study contends that the dichotomy between nature and culture does not exist anymore. These entities are not separated; there is an interrelation between them. Environment only assumes a truthful meaning when it can relate to human world and vice-versa. Well-being of both biotic (including humans) and abiotic communities depend upon the reciprocal and symbiotic relationship between nature and culture. Therefore, we should not conceive the world as being divided anymore, as being separated between these two ontological instances, one natural ( land, water, forests, and so forth ) and the other cultural ( human beings, society, cities, and so forth).