Ecocriticism, Determinism and Imperialism in the Wilderness of: Heart of Darkness and La vorágine
Abstract
In this essay, I will show how these two novels offer a vision of a wilderness that challenges the colonizing subjects' self-reliance to the point of making them victims of their own imperialistic attitudes; where the conventional colonizing body, represented by the power of men, is portrayed as subjugated, and the colonized body, represented by nature, is regarded as subjugator. To understand this perspective on wilderness, I will initially explore the traditional English representations of nature during the nineteenth century and its manifestations in American literature and culture. In addition, I will discuss the colonizing subject's imperialistic attitudes by taking into account the important role that nineteenth-century European theories, such as that of determinism, played in the shaping of human behavior. Finally, I will explore the possible links between the moral and the ecological limils of imperialism, where the abuses against the ecosystem are perceived as an ecological disaster.
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