Hemingway’s works mark the formation of his unique creative style, and occupy a very important position in the history of American literature and world literature history。 Hemingway is a writer who is obsessed with nature。 And nature is one of the themes of Hemingway’s creation。

Hemingway has won many awards in his life。 In 1953, he won the Pulitzer Prize for the book The Old Man and the Sea。 And one year later, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 because of the same book, The Old Man and the Sea。 And in this novel, he praised the value of nature, which was reflected on the relationship between the human and the nature, formed a “back to basics” idea。

In July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide at home with a shotgun。

1。2 The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is a masterpiece created by Hemingway in his later years, and he claimed that “this is the best novel I’ve ever written。” It is a story of a struggle between an old fisherman, Santiago, and a big marlin in the middle of the twentieth century according to the truth。

Santiago, an old fisherman who lived in Cuban, has just gone 84 days without taking a fish。 Santiago believes one day he will begin to catch fish again and that he is just going through an unlucky time。

On the 85th day, Santiago takes his boat out much farther into the sea than usual。 At noon, a big marlin fish, weighted about 1500 pounds, takes the bait。 The old man expertly hooks the fish, but cannot pull it in。 Instead, the fish begins to pull the boat。 论文网

Two days and two nights had passed。 On the third day, the fish begins to circle the boat, and the old man uses all the strength he had left to kill the big fish。

But that doesn’t mean the luck comes back。 The trail of the big marlin’s blood attracted so many sharks in the sea, although the old man tried his best to struggle with sharks, the sharks ate entire fish and left only the skeleton of the fish, its head, and its tail。

1。3 Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism is a new concept which was first proposed by American critic William Rueckert in Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism in1978。 Ecocriticism is a literary criticism theory that studies the relationship between literature and the natural environment and focuses on the protection of ecology。 It aims to define the relationship between literature, nature and culture, so that to help people re-examine the human culture and make cultural criticism and cultural reflection, explore how human thought, culture, and social development patterns affect or even determine human attitudes and behaviors toward nature, and how to cause environmental degradation and trigger an ecological crisis, expose and criticize the ideological roots that lead to environmental degradation and ecological crises, awaken people's ecological protection consciousness, rebuild ecological homes。

From the 1990’s to the present, the ecocriticism has developed three stages in few decades。 The first stage focuses on how to describe the natural environment in the literary works。 The second stage focuses on promoting the literary works which describe the natural environment and be neglected for a long time and meanwhile, making a deep research on the history, development, and style of the literary works。 The third stage of the ecocriticism is trying to establish an ecological poetics and strengthen the theoretical construction of ecological criticism literature by emphasizing the concept of ecosystem。

2 The Ecological Consciousness in The Old Man and the Sea

In this novel, the author expressed much infinite and selfless love of nature, reflecting the ecological ideas that people rely on nature to survive。 But at the same time, he also showed us the concept that people want to achieve self-value by overcome the nature。 Hemingway warned the world with his own personal experience in the literary masterpiece, if human beings dare to conquer the nature, the fate could be nothing but be subject to natural ruthless punishment finally。