ŠUMAVA - NATURE AND PEOPLE - THROUGH THE EYES OF KAREL KLOSTERMANN (with special attention to the frequency,ways and possibilities of individual colours' usage) The aim of this thesis is to designate and describe qualities of the residents of the central Bohemian Forest and the attributes of local nature in the way they were depicted by the writer Karel Klostermann (1848-1923). The results of individual analyses performed in this thesis present the inhabitants of the Bohemian Forest as a society that is conservative, religion-based, maybe even superstitious and bearing a certain distrust to the surrounding world. The Bohemian Forest's landscape is very demanding, the impact of which is visible in the inhabitants' character traits - the increased directness and, in certain aspects, vulgarity of people living under these conditions. Nature is often approached as a literary image that is further developed in accordance with the spirit of impressionism. This is concluded, among other sources, from the specific use of colours that is further analyzed. The emphasis of sense perception pervades almost every descriptive passage.

This project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved connotes bondage because of its historical link to the Triangular Trade. However, considering Morrison's frequent mention of water and the fugitives' constant need to drink, I argue that ingesting water symbolizes a need for psychological freedom. All of the novels that I have analyzed emphasize the complex connections between African Americans and nature. / by Pauline P. Anderson. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

This project examines the presence and significance of ecofeminism and pedagogy within contemporary Young Adult literatures, particularly girls’ ecofantasy literatures. Specifically, I examine the role and representations of the female body in nature and any real or perceived connections between them. To accomplish this, I bring the theories of several feminist, ecofeminist, and environmental studies scholars together with my primary texts, Green Angel and Green Witch by Alice Hoffman, to examine the depiction of the female body in nature through interconnectedness and reciprocity between human and non-human nature, green transformations, and the archetype of the witch. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

This study refocuses the current critical discussion of determinism and character identity development in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, a predominantly "urban" novel, by juxtaposing the ways in which the natural world functions deterministically in Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native and Theodore Dreiser's The Bulwark. First, a close reading of The Return of the Native suggests that characters' interactions with the natural world determine their identities by forcing shifts in perception and complicating their abilities to assert an identity apart from their environments. Then, a reading of The Bulwark—a novel in which Dreiser deals with the natural world quite directly—allows an exploration of how these same patterns of perception, understanding, and identity formation take shape in a text by Dreiser. The final chapter of this study synthesizes these readings of The Return of the Native and The Bulwark as a means of entry into an analysis of Sister Carrie's deterministic forces. Ultimately, attention to how the natural world influences characters through its timelessness and infinite size, as well as to how the natural world shapes a character's perspective and sense of self, adds to our understanding of the novel's determinism. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 213-220). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

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This thesis explores the thematic desire to establish an ecological human bond with nature in four contemporary novels: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, An Imaginary Life by David Malouf, and The Expedition to The Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenström. These authors share a concern with the influence that language has on human perception, and one of the most significant ways they attempt to connect with the natural world is through somehow escaping, or transcending, what they perceive to be the divisive tendencies of language. They all suggest that human perception is not steered entirely by a disembodied mind, which constructs reality through linguistic and cultural lenses, but is equally influenced by physical circumstances and embodied experiences. They explore the potential of corporeal reciprocity and empathy as that which enables understanding across cultural barriers, and a sense of ecologically intertwined kinship with nature. They all struggle to reconcile their awareness of the potential danger of relating to nature exclusively through language, with a desire to speak for the natural world in literature. I have examined whether they succeed in doing so, or whether they contradict their thematic suspicion of language with their literary medium. I have prioritised a close ecocritical reading of the novels and loosely situated the authors’ approach to nature and language within the broad theoretical frameworks of radical ecology, structuralism and poststructuralism. I suggest that these novels are best analysed in the context of an ecocritical mediation between poststructuralist conceptions of nature as inaccessible cultural construct, and the naïve conception of unmediated, pre-reflective interaction with the natural world. I draw especially on the phenomenological theories of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose insistence that perception is always both embodied and culturally mediated truly renders culture and nature irreducible, intertwined categories. By challenging historical dualisms like mind/body and culture/nature, the selected novels suggest a more fluid and discursive understanding of the perceived conflict between language and nature, whilst problematizing the perception of language as merely a cultural artefact. Moreover, they are examples of the kind of literature that has the potential to positively influence our human conception of nature, and adapt us better to our ecological context on a planet struggling for survival.

A social-constructionist ecofeminist perspective argues that patriarchal society separates the human (or culture) from nature, which causes a false assumption that humanity possesses the right, as a superior species, to dominate nature. This perspective integrates the domination of nature with social conflicts, including but not limited to racial discrimination, gender oppression, and class hierarchies. Understanding how these various forms of oppression interrelate forms the main goal of an ecofeminist perspective. Since the nature-culture, female-male, and whitenonwhite conflicts resonate and interlock throughout South Africa's history, socialconstructionist ecofeminism is an indispensable perspective for analysing South African literature. This thesis takes a social-constructionist ecofeminist approach and applies it to four women authors that write about South African society between the years 1860-1900. This thesis includes the following authors and their works: Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) and two of her novels, The Story of an African Farm (1883) and From Man to Man (published posthumously in 1927); Pauline Smith (1882-1959) and her novel The Beadle (1926); Dalene Matthee (1938- ) and three of her novels, Circles in a Forest (1984), Fiela's Child (1986), and The Mulberry Forest (1987); and Marguerite Poland (1950- ) and one of her novels, Shades (1993). This thesis investigates two women from the time period (Schreiner and Smith) and two women from a late twentieth century perspective (Matthee and Poland) and compares how they depict the natural environment, how they construct gender, and how they interpret class and race power struggles. This thesis concludes that the social-constructionist perspective offers unique insights into these four authors. Schreiner's novels reveal her concerns about gender and racial conflicts in South Africa and her understanding of the nature-culture dichotomy as sustained by Social Darwinism. Smith offers insights into the complex power structures in a rural Afrikaans society that keep women and nonwhite races silent. Matthee writes nature as an active participant in her novels; the social and ecological conflicts emphasise the transformation of the Knysna area. Poland explores the racial tensions, gender conflicts, and environmental concerns that preceded the South African War. Schreiner, Smith, Matthee, and Poland make up a small cross-section of South African literature, but they provide a basis for further discussing the ecofeminist perspective within a South African context. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

This study examines Hawthorne's use of symbols, particularly flowers, in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Romantic ideals stressed the full development of the self¬reliant individual, and romantic writers such as Hawthorne believed the individual would fully develop not only spiritually, but also intellectually by taking instruction from the natural world. Hawthorne's heroines reach their full potential as independent women in two steps: they first work together to defeat powerful patriarchies, and they then learn to read natural symbols to cultivate their artistic sensibilities which lead them to a full development of their intellect and spirituality. The focus of this study is Hawthorne's narrative strategy; how the author uses symbols as a language his heroines use to communicate from one generation to the next. In The Scarlet Letter, for instance, the symbol of a rose connects three generations of feminine reformers, Ann Hutchinson, Hester Prynne, and Pearl. By the end of the novel, Pearl interprets a rose as a symbol of her maternal line, which links her back to Ann Hutchinson. Similarly in The House of the Seven Gables Alice, Hepzibah, and Phoebe Pyncheon are part of a family line of women who work together to overthrow the Pyncheon patriarchy. The youngest heroine, Phoebe, comes to an understanding of her great, great aunt Alice's message from the posies her feminine ancestor plants in the Pyncheon garden. Through Phoebe's interpretation of the flowers, she deciphers how the cultivation of a sense of artistic appreciation is essential to the progress of American culture.

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