A Study On Ecological Ethics In Elwyn Brooks White’s Children Trilogy

E.B.White was "the greatest American essayist of the twentieth century." As the lead writer of The New Yorker,White established the profound "The New Yorker" style of writing,but what truly made him world-renowned was his three children’s literature works,which are Stuart Little,Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan.They are regarded as the most well-liked fairy tales of the twentieth century.White not only had a heart of gold and loved everything in the world but also created excellent works.His works are filled with ecological thoughts and ecological appeal.His Once More to the Lake,similar to Thoreau’s Walden,concerned about nature and creatures and treated them equally.This study aims at exploring the ecological consciousness embodied in White’s three masterpieces,Stuart Little,Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan in the perspective of the theory of ecological ethics criticism.The whole paper falls into five parts.The introduction of this essay briefly introduces the life of E.B.White and his three children’s literature works.Then,the introduction gives a literature review on previous research about White both at home and abroad.Finally,it explains the theoretical framework of ecological ethics on which this paper is based.The first chapter analyzes the images of animal heroes and human beings as protectors in White’s trilogy from the view of non-anthropocentrism and the human’s two-dimensional orientation as subject.The second chapter analyzes the three works from the perspective of land ethics.Firstly,it studies the local consciousness in Stuart Little.And it embodies in the story that Stuart is born in the human family and then lives with human but goes away from them at last to return to nature.Secondly,it analyzes ecological holism reflected in Charlotte’s Web.The third chapter deepens the theme by means of ecological virtues ethics.It probes into White’s natural and spiritual ecology combined with Schweitzer’s theory of "reverence for life",which is to advocate the reverence for life and respect for nature and break anthropocentrism to seek ecological harmony.Finally,it points out the important educational value of children ’ s literature for the cultivation of children’s ecological ethics.