Nature is everywhere. Every day we have contact with it. Still, many of us do not realize how important it is for our survival. Descriptions of nature have always been present in novels. However, recently the aspect of nature in literature, as well as in other disciplines, has been dealt with in a slightly different way. As a result, an ecocritical approach to literature has been favoured. This essay shows nature's impact on the characters in Jane Urquhart's The Stone Carvers. Using this novel as an example, I start by studying how the concept of nature is often constructed through opposition. I then move on to show how stereotypical boundaries between nature and human beings may be challenged. Finally I study how nature function as a healing agent in The Stone Carvers. In my studies I combine the theories of ecocriticism with a psychoanalytical perspective through the concept of abjection.

Dissertação(mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras, Instituto de Letras e Artes, 2008. / Submitted by Cristiane Silva (cristiane_gomides@hotmail.com) on 2012-10-18T15:07:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 marciaklee.pdf: 2550313 bytes, checksum: b427beaad001d7f4f2de4006e5d323d4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Bruna Vieira(bruninha_vieira@ibest.com.br) on 2012-11-05T19:39:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 marciaklee.pdf: 2550313 bytes, checksum: b427beaad001d7f4f2de4006e5d323d4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-11-05T19:39:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 marciaklee.pdf: 2550313 bytes, checksum: b427beaad001d7f4f2de4006e5d323d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / O presente trabalho propõe o estudo de Changing Heaven – romance de Jane Urquhart publicado em Toronto, Canadá, pela editora Emblem Editions, em 1990. Com ele, pretendo demonstrar a relação existente entre o universo romanesco proposto por Urquhart e aquele da tradição gótica inglesa de autoria feminina, com a qual ela abertamente dialoga. Além disso, aproximo Changing Heaven da série anglo-canadense para o mesmo gênero, estabelecendo, entre eles, relações que visam a caracterizar a feição assumida por esta narrativa junto ao país de Urquhart. Por fim, discorro brevemente sobre de que forma Changing Heaven dialoga com ou revisa a linhagem/ancestralidade de romances góticos de autoria feminina. O conceito de gótico feminino utilizado aqui é aquele cunhado por Ellen Moers (1977). Para o estudo do gótico, embora muitas fontes tenham sido consultadas, vali-me principalmente das concepções de Eugenia DeLamotte e seu Perils of the night: a feminist study of the nineteenth century Gothic (1990). Neste estudo, defendo que a moldura gótica adotada por Urquhart em Changing Heaven permite-lhe sublinhar os temas da identidade, alteridade, memória e o processo de criação artística, bem como reafirmar sua escritura através do diálogo com o romance Wuthering Heights (1897), da inglesa Emily Brontë, a grande matriz narratológica por trás do seu romance. / The present work proposes a study of Jane Urquhart’s Changing Heaven, a novel first published in Toronto, Canada, by Emblem Editions Press in 1990. It aims at demonstrating the relation between the novelistic universe as conceived by Urquhart and that of the female Gothic English tradition, with which she overtly dialogs. Moreover, I bring Changing Heaven near the Anglo-Canadian series of the same genre so as to trace parallels that ultimately intend do explicit the features that shape this kind of narrative in Urquhart’s country. Last, I briefly go over on how Changing Heaven dialogs with or contributes to revise the lineage/tradition of female Gothic novels. The concept of female Gothic used here is the one coined by Ellen Moers (1977). For the study of the Gothic itself, even though many sources have been consulted, Eugenia Delamotte’s Perils of the night: a feminist study of the nineteenth century Gothic (1990) has proved to be especially relevant. In this work, the point made is that the Gothic frame used by Urquhart allows this writer to underline issues concerning identity, otherness, memory and the process of artistic creation, as well as to restate her own writing praxis through the dialog with the novel Wuthering Heights (1897), by Emily Brönte, the main intertext behind Urquhart’s novel.