Reason’s Assault upon Nature in Faulkner’sThe Bear

Abstract

This research makes an attempt to explore reason’s assault upon nature in Faulkner’s The Bearby applying eco critical perspective, a theory that examines the representation of the relationship between nature and culture in literary imaginings. Further, it investigates how the humans put their mind to control nature. In doing so, I have used JohnHannigan’s “Arcadian discourse,” Sander’s “Speaking a Word for Nature”, Val Plumwood’s “The Blindspots of Centrism and Human Self-enclosure, “and Paul W. Taylor’s “The Ethics of Respect for Nature” as theoretical insights to analyze the text. Here, the ‘reason’ means human rationality. Human beings claim of being superior to animals and other beings of nature on the basis of their unique quality of reasoning/rationality. Animals and plants are regarded not having reasoning capability so they are in the world to serve human interests and desires. Human’s so called reason has made them to feel superior to nature and hence exploit nature ruthlessly to fulfill human desires. Furthermore, humans use the techniques of radical exclusion, otherization, stereotypical representation and instrumentalization to suppress and destroy the non-human world. The all beings and things are to be protected from the dangers of environment crisis throughout the ecosphere. The research method consist of wide review of relevant literature collected from different scholarly journals and books. The findings from this research show that nature and human are the two entities which possess distinct intrinsic values and are equally important to maintain ecological balance. Therefore, each and every activity of human beings is to be intricately connected with nature. This can be well addressed by the different insights developed by different eco-critics who focus on the concern of the reason’s assault upon nature. Keywords: Wilderness, interconnectedness, reason, nature, ecological balance, land