Owning America: American Literature, ecocriticism, and the attempt to redefine land ownership.

摘要

This dissertation explores the ways American authors redefine land ownership to satisfy their need for a sense of belonging in a new world. In examining the relationships forged between characters and the land through ownership, this study builds on ecocritical methodology while offering two critiques of that methodology. First, contrary to ecocriticism's lionizing of untouched wilderness, the authors I study envision a natural world that encourages human presence. Second, in adopting tenets of modern environmentalism, ecocriticism has ignored the way American authors connect people and nature through land ownership. Chapter one argues that contrary to recent ecocritical readings of Henry David Thoreau, which herald his prescience in promoting the preservation of untouched wilderness, Thoreau actually sought a middle ground where wildness and domesticity could coexist. Though Thoreau is often openly critical of the concept of ownership, his works from Walden to the posthumously published Wild Fruits redefine ownership as a concept to allow multiple people as well as animals to own land through personal use (including uses ranging from occupancy to aesthetic enjoyment) instead of basing ownership on exclusive use rights and legal title. Chapter two demonstrates that Willa Cather's O Pioneers! promotes a progressive relationship between humanity and the land grounded in land speculation and use of technological advancements. Cather is often considered nostalgic in her depictions of the prairie, but her heroine, Alexandra Bergson, thrives because of her progressive understanding of the land's market value. Alexandra's connection to the land minors the transformation of ownership enacted by the Homestead Act. Congressional debate surrounding the act created a route to establish ownership through physical labor in addition to traditional means of purchase payment for land. Chapter three enters a debate surrounding Faulkner's place in the environmental canon, arguing for Faulkner's environmental integrity based not on the mimetic accuracy of his wilderness depictions but on his stylized depictions of nature that allow characters to connect with and own the landscapes they encounter. In spite of Ike's relinquishment of his inheritance, Go Down, Moses ultimately demonstrates that a re-envisioned form of ownership is necessary to promote human responsibility for the land.