Two Defintions of Nature found In Rowlandson

For this week’s blog I thought it would be a good idea to examine the text “A Narrative of Captivity” by Mary Rowlandson  from two weeks prior because of personal favor for the text and answer one of  the courses  “central questions” in order to get a better grasp on how this text can be viewed as “environmental literature” .  The text will be examined with the focal point of answering the central question- “What kinds of environmental and nature are of interest in the text?  How does the author define these terms (explicitly or implicitly), and how useful are these definitions?” I will focus heavily on the “useful” aspect of the definitions of natures, as I feel it has been covered in class thoroughly how the these texts are anthropocentric or ecocentric and how they align with another important questions such as Buell’s checklist.

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What is our interest ?

In his work on ecocriticism “The future of environmental criticism”, Lawrence Buell gave definitions for anthropocentrism ans ecocentrism. To put it in simple terms, the former is focusing on the interests of humans over the interests of the environment, while the latter is the opposite. We have seen that when it comes to environmental texts, there is no clear distinction between the two views, both can be applied to the same text.

When choosing environmental literature as a class, I thought I was choosing a class that would focus on literary ways to increase consciousness on environmental protection. My expectation will surely be met when reading Rachel Carson. Buell’s definitions made me wonder, what do our actions regarding environmental protection say of us? Do they make us more anthropocentric or ecocentric?

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