A Study Of Faulkner’s Eco-ethics In Go Down, Moses

William Faulkner, the famous American southern writer, focuses on and probes into the theme of the eco-ethics between human and nature and among humans in his novel Go Down, Moses. Faulkner expresses his special passion and love towards the wilderness through Ike’s growing-up experiences in the wilderness. In the change of the American South from the old fashioned way into a new one, Faulkner reflects the relationship between human and land, the industrialized civilization and anthropocentrism, and the deep seated social reasons for the alienation of human and nature, which renders incisively Faulkner’s ecological consciousness and eco-ethics beyond the time.American ecologist, Aldo Leopold, has pointed out in his book A Sand County Almanac,"that land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics." The main point of his’land ethic’ is that the boundaries of the community should be enlarged to include all of the non-human elements such as waters, soils, plants, and animals, or collectively:the land. Social ecologist, Murray Bookchin thinks that the contemporary ecological crisis is rooted in a more deep and complex social problems. To make this point more concrete:economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others, lies at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today. At the scope of ecological ethics, the alienation of human and nature exactly reflects the distortion and deterioration of the ethical relationship between human beings.The introduction briefly introduces the background and the eco-ethics, summarizes the current research and the relevant literary ecocritcism which can help interpret Faulkner’s eco-ethics better.Chapter one mainly explores Faulkner’s eco-ethical views in the environmental, ideological and cultural, historical and industrial civilization contexts. The vanishing wilderness and the native Indian culture have a significant impact on Faulkner’s complex about wilderness. Facing with the sharp conflict between the progressing civilization and the destructing wilderness, Faulkner realizes the flaws of industrialized civilization, which reflects his ecological consciousness beyond the time.Chapter two concentrates on Faulkner’s reflection on natural ecology. The protagonist Isaac McCalin’s hunting of the Old Ben under the tutelage of mentor, Sam Fathers, through the wilderness’s baptizing, not only becomes mature in the process of pursuit and hunting and reborn in spirit, but also becomes aware of the intrinsic values carried by wilderness. And at the same time, it shows the interrelationship between human beings and nature and the irreconcilable contradiction between the progressing civilization and the destructing wilderness.Chapter three endeavors to explore Faulkner’s social ecology. For Faulkner, by environment he meant social ecology more than natural ecology and what’s more by examining the relationship between human and nature to explore the deep-rooted social problems. Faulkner’s criticism of land ownership and his criticism of the domination of human by human indicate that the alienation of humanity and the alienation of humans from nature directly stem from society. Human beings are capable of abusing and selling the land just because they regard it as a commodity, which becomes the causes of the global ecological crisis today. And also because of the domination of human by human, human beings dominate the land further.