Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215

1
Ecocriticism The Search for Nature

The role of the ecocritic seems ever increasingly to be the advocators for the
natural world. Estok described ecocriticism as more than simply the study of
Nature or natural things in literature; rather, it is any theory that is committed to
effecting change by analyzing the functionthematic, artistic, social, historical,
ideological, theoretical, or otherwiseof the natural environment, or aspects of it,
represented in documents (literary or other) that contribute to material
practices in material worlds (2005). It revolves, most fundamentally around the
role of nature a term that is usually (and problematically) taken to be distinctly
different from the human sphere of influence. Hess notes that for many
ecocritics, nature is most present where humans are absent, and most absent
where humans and their impacts are concentrated (2009), though he goes on to
contest this idea with his concept of everyday nature. This debate is not
exclusive to Hess, and Barry surmises the situation concisely, the meaning of the
word nature is a key site of struggle (2002). The ecocritical theory, though a
comparatively new one, has undergone a number of shifts and divergences due
to such debates, particularly in regard to the role of nature and culture. In The
Benefits of Wilderness and Les Murrays The Cows on Killing Day, the ecocritic
can draw on a wide range of ecocritical concepts, which most notably include the
concept of the wilderness vs. the human environment, anthropocentrism vs.
ecocentrism and the moral and spiritual implications of using the natural world.
Interestingly, Heise writes in early types of environmental scholarship, nature
tended to be envisioned as a victim of modernisation but also as its opposite and
alternative; nature is now more often viewed as inextricably entwined with
modernity (2006). For the purposes of this analysis, this essay will draw on and
link concepts across the range of ecocritical scholarship.

Barry attempts to clarify this notion of nature into a series of categories which
travel gradually from nature to culture, moving from the wilderness, to the
scenic sublime and the countryside to the domestic picturesque, stating that
we have nature, and culture and, states partaking in both, and that all three are

Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215
2
real (2002). The key factor in Barrys analysis is that of the real. On the other
hand, Kern admits nature is important not for what it is physically but for what
it conceptually means of can be made to mean(2000). Together, this dualism
between the real and the represented Nature formulates the basis of ecocritical
study. Benefits uses the terms wilderness and nature interchangeably. In
Benefits, nature is a real place, but it also serves an imaginative, idealised
function. The text assumes that wilderness can be found only where human
influence cant. This representation of nature is particularly narrow, as it avoids
all other forms of the natural world, focusing on what Hess calls the romantic
longing to save a place we will probably never see but can identify with through
literature and the personality of its author(2009). The text goes on to proclaim
our luckiness to have undeveloped land, reiterating Cronons argument that
environmentalism in the United States (and Australia) tends to hold up an ideal
of landscapes untouched by human beings as the standard against which actual
landscapes are measured.(cited in Heise 2006). Ecocritics often refer to
statements such as Thoreaus in wildness is the preservation of the world as
criterion for their argument. However, ideas about the concept wilderness were
necessarily re-evaluated when the Cronon published his work The Trouble with
Wilderness. He argued that far from being the one place on earth that stands
apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation (1996). The
transhistorical ideal of wilderness only came to acquire connotations of the
sublime and sacred in the nineteenth century, says Cronon (cited in Heise 2006)
and with the cultural valuation of pristine and uninhabited areas led to this
conscious shaping of this wilderness both physically, in the form of designated
parks, as well as in the collective imagination.

The identity of wilderness is an important point for ecocritics. Benefits
regards nature as something to be owned and looked after, as something to be
commoditised, and as something to be revered and loved. In Benefits, nature
can be found not only as a real place but also as a state of mind. The text is an
excellent example of the dangers of romantic escapism as proclaimed by Hess: if
we seek nature apart from out own lives, how can we reconstructure those
lives in order to change the current patterns of environmental

Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215
3
deconstruction? (2010:86). Although it aims to speak ecocentrically, the article
ultimately reveals itself to have the interests of humans at heart. The article
claims society has more to gain from wilderness preservation than from its
exploitation. It then proceeds to outline the role of both the real and imagined
nature in the collective human mind. Here, nature has become something to be
revered, but also it is something to be had, to be experienced, to be used. Nature
is used as a spiritual escape from modern life, making it as much an imaginative
escape as it is a physical one. The article uses strong emotive, even hyperbolic
language (sensual feast, luscious, excites, lures) to convince the reader of
the delights of nature, rather than the preservation of nature in its own right.
Even the title, The Benefits of Wilderness, proclaims nothing more than
societys gain, thus solidifying the anthropocentric model of thinking that
surrounds the text.
Throughout Benefits, there are numerous references to our resources, our
wild places, if we preserve wilderness, our last remaining wilderness. This
sense of possession emphasises the way in which nature is regarded. It further
brings to mind questions of if humans own these wildernesses are they then
truly untouched by the human hand and therefore truly natural.

This idea is explored further in Cows through the exploration of pastoral
nature, especially in contrast to the notion of wilderness nature. For much of the
nineteenth century, especially among European critics, farming fell into the
picturesque category of nature, romanticised as it was by city dwellers and
writers such as Wordsworth. Greg Garrard, draws the conclusion that radical
pastoralism appears as the political, poetical question of be/longing, of the root
of the being on this earth(2004). The pastoral floats somewhere between the
true nature, such as described by Buell in The Environmental Imagination, and
the human sphere. Cows, however, manipulates our way of thinking about the
pastoral. The poem urges the reader to see the world through the eyes of the
cows, achieving this by linking common ideas about pastoral life and shifting the
focus from humans to cows. Bate writes of his shift from ecocriticism to
ecopoetics, proposing the experiential, not just the representational quality of
poetic writing. Bate suggests that it is the work of the ecocritic to speak on behalf

Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215
4
of the Other, the nature that cannot speak for itself (Bate 2000). Murrays poem
is speaking as the cows as a stylistic device to further enhance the message that
Murray is speaking for the cows. The interest of the poem is in bringing to light
the true nature, and the provide warning against the evils of exploiting the
natural world. One of the most obvious stylistic devices is the cows
identification through the collective me. Not only does this technique showcase
the separation from human thinking, but also simultaneously encourages the
reader to identify with the cows.

The contrast between human technology and nature is emphasised in this poem.
The cows environment is almost entirely man-made and, but by relating it back
to their natural counterparts, the text attempts to reconcile the disjointed human
with the natural world. The cows comment on being milked by that dry
toothless sucking by the chilly mouths/ that gasp loudly in in in, and never
breathe out. This relation to the natural world, and its subsequent divergence
from it is one example of the warnings against the unnatural human. That being
said, however, humans themselves in the poem are not shown to be above
nature. Referred to as the heifer human or the bull human, these humans are
equated on the same level as the cows, bound by the same laws of nature, for
example One me smells of needing the bull complements The heifer human
smells of needing the bull human. In this way, it can be seen that Cows is
thoroughly ecocentred, focused as it is on the needs of nature.

The idea that the human sphere is unnatural is ingrained into many ecocritics
readings, both British minatory readings and American readings, although more
recent critics such as Hess argue that it should not be so. The argument stems
from the nature/culture binary debate, where the interaction of culture within
nature leads to the loss of significance and connectedness with nature. Heise
makes an important observation in regard to the exploitation of nature and the
ecocritical warnings against it, stating:

Ecocriticism aims its critique of modernity at its presumption to know the natural
world scientifically, to manipulate it technologically and exploit it economically, and

Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215
5
thereby ultimately to create a human sphere from it in a historical process that is usually
labelled progress. This domination strips nature of any value other than as a material
resource and commodity and leads to a gradual destruction that may in the end deprive
humanity of its basis for subsistence. Such domination empties human life of the
significance it had derived from living in and with nature and alienates individuals and
communities from their rootedness in place.(Heise 2006: 597).

Taking these factors under consideration in reading Benefits and Cows, it
becomes obvious that the human sphere is regarded as increasingly unnatural.
Each of these texts is a response to a need to change the way humanity interacts
with nature, with varying levels of success. Benefits is in search of a missing
connection, while Cows offers many questions as to where the line between
nature and culture is drawn. Hess extrapolates on Heises position, emphasising
the need to recognise nature not just in the wild, picturesque or leisurely, but
also in the everyday and the practical (2009). Hesss argument is particularly
helpful when examining the search for nature in pastoral ecology.

In Benefits, the text romanticises nature to the point where Suddenly, the
wilderness becomes your world. The underlying assumption of the text rests on
the understanding that not only is this world your world, but it is something
ideal, to be escaped to. It alludes to the idea that the human created world is
essentially un-natural, even un-real and that humans have become trapped. At
the end of the text, it states, contact with the natural world allows us to escape.
Take away wilderness and we become our own prisoners. Cows takes this
notion further by identifying the reader with something natural and then
showcasing the ways in which the unnatural have become naturalised or
disguised as natural. In Cows, although the natural is still present, it has been
mediated through human interference. The cows themselves are natural and
organic, subjected as they are to sexual urges and the need to eat. The feed,
thats been bitten but never swallowed, yet is cud permeates the feel of much
of the poem it is constantly available, but only through the humans, as the cows
recognise and cud comes with the tractor. This unnatural reliance on humans is
further emphasised in the horror of the slaughter of the old me. A stick is

Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215
6
really a gun, a shining leaf is really a knife, and the terrible, the blood of me is
simultaneously natural and unnatural.

This feeling of the unnatural relates back to the disconnected human mind in
search of their connection to nature as portrayed by Hess. The ecocritical
reading revolves around questions of the natural, the unnatural and the human
sphere. It has been seen that The Benefits of Wilderness and The Cows on
Killing Day each offer important insight into the ways in which the ecocritic
views the world, and that through these texts, readers may find and shape their
own perception of nature.







Emily Surian The Search for Nature MAS215
7
References:

Barry, P. (2002). Beginning theory: an introduction to literary and cultural
theory, Manchester University Press.

Bate, J. (2000). The song of the earth, Harvard University Press.

Cronon, W. (1996). "The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong
Nature." Environmental History 1(1): 7-28.

Estok, S. C. (2005). "Shakespeare and Ecocriticism: An Analysis of Home and
Power in King Lear." AUMLA 103(May 2005): 15-41.

Garrard, G. (2004). Ecocriticism, Routledge.

Heise, U. K. (2006). "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Ecocriticism." PMLA 121(2): 503 -
516.

Hess, S. (2009). "Imagining an Everyday Nature." Interdisciplinary Studies in
Literature and the Environment 17(1): 85-112.

Kern, R. (2000). "Ecocriticism: What is it Good For?" Interdiscipliary Studies in
Literature and Science 17(1): 9-37.