An Ecocritical Study Of Dances With Wolves And We Bought A Zoo

The Oscar-winning movie Dances with Wolves tells a story that during the Civil War, Lieutenant Dunbar befriends animals and Sioux Indians, and gets a rebirth in the Western wilderness. The family movie We Bought a Zoo is inspired by a real story. When the protagonist Benjamin Mee endures the pain of the loss of his wife, he takes his children to their new home——a broken-down zoo. Through repairing it, they shake off their anguish and restore their relations.With the increasing economy and advancing science and technology after the Industrial Revolution, mankind’s material life has been improved constantly. But what follows is the depletion of natural resources, the deterioration of environment and the loss of spiritual homeland. Ecological crisis and spiritual crisis are rooted in the egocentrism. The ego alienates from nature and humanity. With the strong sense of estrangement, man can hardly recognize the oneness of man and other beings or their association and common qualities. Against this background, the protagonists of Dances with Wolves and We Bought a Zoo identify with animals and nature, through which they reshape themselves, get rid of grief and confusion, and gain joy and serenity. This process corresponds to the realization of ecological self, the core of deep ecology. The comparison of the two films reveals that either conforming to nature in the wilderness or building home for animals and constructing the damaged land can fulfill the realization of ecological self, which helps human broaden the self and achieve life meanings, and at the same time makes man preserve nature out of inclination. Based on Naess’ s theory of deep ecology, this thesis analyses Dances with Wolves and We Bought a Zoo in an ecocritical way and presents the significance of the realization of ecological self.This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the synopsis of the two research texts Dances with Wolves and We Bought a Zoo, nature writing and ecofilms, the development of ecocriticism, as well as the theoretical framework. The second chapter explores how anthropocentrism, or egocentrism, leads to the alienation between man and nature as well as the alienation between people, which is the root of ecological and spiritual crisis. The next two chapters as the focus of this thesis analyze the films with the theory of deep ecology. The third chapter discusses the process of the protagonists’ identification with animals and nature. The fourth chapter explains that to realize the ecological self is to increasingly identify with others, deepen and widen the self, and try to realize all potentialities. Also, it points out that the realization of ecological self facilitates the further development of social self. The fifth chapter is the conclusion of this thesis. The author takes the view that Dunbar in Dances with Wolves integrates with Sioux Indians to achieve salvation, and that the Mees in We Bought a Zoo recover from pain to welcome new life. These changes contribute to the ecological self they realize via identifying with other lives. Besides, the realization of ecological self benefits the well-beings of both human and ecological environment.