Margaret Atwood’s Ecological Ideas

Ecocriticism as a green critical school has progressed rapidly during the past two decades,elaborating a distinctive diagnosis and prescription for the ever deteriorating ecological crisesin the world today. As a contemporary Canadian writer who has written many works ofecological literature, Margaret Atwood (1939-) enjoys worldwide prestige. The publicationof the former two novels of her MaddAddam trilogy, Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year ofthe Flood (2009), which depict the same future event from two different perspectives, haveattracted critics’ attention. Adopting Professor Lu Shuyuan’s “trichotomy”, this thesiscomprehensively studies the two novels from natural ecology, social ecology and spiritualecology, aiming to explore the ecological ideas of Atwood. The thesis concludes that there isan urgent need for human beings to focus on the following three tasks: to pay more attentionto reconstructing the harmony between man and nature; to refine the mold of socialdevelopment without exploiting nature; and to make arduous efforts to eliminate spiritualproblems which are the root causes of ecological crises and social problems.