On The Ecological Sense In Margaret Drabble’s The Ice Age

Margaret Drabble is a prestigious novelist in British literature today. In an era whenpost-modern literature prevails, Drabble develops her unique realistic style and becomesworld-renowned in British literary circle. Drabble is a writer with strong consciousness oflife and sense of worry. In different periods, her novels have different focuses, which haverepresented life changes of Western society for nearly half a century.The Ice Age is usually considered as a sign indicating that Drabble’s creation hastransformed from early “feminine novel” into later “social criticism novel”. It is Drabble’sfirst, also may be her only novel using male character as protagonist. It embodies themid-1970’s British society and reflects the middle-aged disillusionment of the middle class.Since the novel was published in1977, critics have studied it from various perspectives, suchas characterization, disputes on the plot, language style, narrative strategy, themes andsymbols. Until now, few critics have interpreted it from the perspective of ecocritcism, which,in fact, is really worth doing. This thesis tries to apply text analysis, combining with theoryof ecocritcism to get a comprehensive interpretation of Drabble’s ecological consciousness inThe Ice Age.This thesis consists of five parts, including an introduction, three independent chapters,and a conclusion. The introduction part contains brief introductions of Margaret Drabble, TheIce Age, literature review and research question, theory of ecocriticism.Chapter one analyzes Drabble’s ecological sence of worry from three aspects: concernsabout natural ecology embodied in the description of human’s conquest and destruction ofnature, environmental pollution and energy crisis; concerns about social ecology revealed ininterpersonal indifference and estrangement, moral anomie and violence; concerns aboutspiritual ecology reflected in modern people’s loss of belief and psychological problems.Chapter two is about Drabble’s ecological sense of criticism, which contributes toexploring the ideological and cultural roots of ecological crisis. Drabble makes criticism ofthe distorted urban values under industrial civilization, unlimited expansion of materialdesires and anthropocentrism.Chapter three points out Drabble’s exploration of ways of getting out of ecologicalcrisis，making an analysis of Drabble’s ecological sense of salvation. In Drabble’s eyes,being close to nature can help to reshape healthy human nature and get out of ecologicalcrisis and men can also get redemptive strength from love. The conclusion part summarizes the ecocritical study of The Ice Age and restates thesignificance and value of this thesis.