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Article Summary by Dan S.
Luo begins his analysis with Three Kingdoms, “probably the best-known historical novel in China” (805), and the oldest of the three novels which he analyzes. He argues that, within Three Kingdoms, nature is not so much lived within as used for a greater, anthropocentric end. He highlights several passages within the novel in which one of the main characters, Zhuge, “the most intelligent man in Three Kingdoms, makes deals, or contracts with nature to attempt to bend it to his will and make it serve his own ends. He is, however, unsuccessful, because even he could not completely control the unpredictability of nature. In conclusion to this, Luo writes that Three Kingdoms “portrays humanity’s alienation from the natural world, and highlights man’s efforts to understand and use nature” (808). However, it also reveals the “ultimate failure of these efforts” (808).
The next book which Luo analyzes is The Plum In the Golden Vase (hereafter referred to as Plum). Plum was a work of “domestic fiction” , and a “masterpiece of the domestic novel” (808). Plum, (very much unlike most western, Victorian ‘domestic’ novels) depicts the domestic intrigues of Ximen Quing, especially with regards to his multiple, various concubines. In this novel, Luo argues, “there is no wilderness”, but only a “beautiful garden” (809). Therefore, there is no truly independent natural world in the novel, but instead only the domestic one, which “concerns processing and domesticating objects from nature for human appreciation and consumption” (811). However, as Luo closes his argument about Plum, he highlights a passage in the novel in which even its domesticity must bend to nature and natural power, when Ximen, the main character, is stopped by “a violent windstorm” (811), thus showing that Nature still holds some degree of superiority, even over the entirely domestic Ximen.
Luo then continues on to the next novel The Journey into the West (hereafter abbreviated as Journey). This was a novel contemporary to Plum, and depicts the travels of Tripitaka, a Buddhist monk, as he goes from China to India with his three disciples. Such a long journey is, naturally, fraught with peril, and much of that peril has some natural element, elements which are often insurmountable even with the supernatural powers which the travellers possess. Luo calls upon several examples of the various ways in which Nature poses a threat or a problem to the travellers, and states that “They have to fight the elements of nature with the help of local people in order to continue their journey.” (814). Initially, then, Luo argues, Journey is similar to Plum, in that nature is something to be overcome. However, in contrast to Plum, Journey, as Luo states, “transpires within the context of a globalized form of nature consisting of many localized environments”, and that “Any absolute conquest (over nature) becomes unattainable” (815).
In conclusion, Luo argues that ecocriticism “can often avoid the pitfalls of ethnocentrism”, and can offer “a broad and interdisciplinary perspective” for cross-cultural comparisons. (815/816). It can also be used, he argues, in a literary sense, to explain, at least partially, the “rise of complicated, lengthy vernacular novels” in Chinese literature, as man’s relationship with nature became increasingly more adversarial and complicated. Finally, he argues that this literature can be used, from an ecocritical perspective, to explain some of China’s current environmental problems, and to also serve as “a sober reminder to contemporary readers of the limits of their own relationships with nature” (816).
Luo, Junjie. "Man, Nature, and the World: An Ecocritical Interpretation of Three Premodern Chinese Novels." Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 21.4 (2014): 801-820.
