Revisiting ecoambiguity based on Han Shaogong’s Between mountains and lakes

Abstract

Entering the new century, ecological crises become a global issue. Against the backdrop, the discussion on ecological literature goes viral. Along with the reform and opening up, China faces an ecological challenge, as well. Thus, contemporary writers in China start ecological writing. Meanwhile, Karen Thornber in her monograph Eco-ambiguity: Environmental Crises and Eastern Asian Literatures proposes ecoambiguity, the complex, contradictory interactions between people and the nonhuman condition based on East Asian literatures. However, in the context of China, ecoambiguity manifests some limitations like temporal span and ignores the social-economic dimension, which hinders the possible reform of ecological problems and misunderstands Chinese ecological ideas. Therefore, the research will revisit ecoambiguity based on Han’s Between Mountains and Lakes to investigate ecoambiguity further and find possible green strategies. First, it will investigate the divergences between ecoambiguity and Chinese ancient ecological ideas, and demonstrate that ecoambiguity corresponds with texts after industrialization. After the representation of ecoambiguity in the book, the research will figure out the cause of ecoambiguity from the perspective of eco-Marxism to dig out possible paths to a green world. Eventually, the research discovers that ecoambiguity is incompatible with texts before industrialization while ecoambiguity fits texts after industrialization. The cause of ecoambiguity is highly related to the drawbacks of capitalist society from the perspective of eco-Marxism. The research successfully delimits the temporal scope of ecoambiguity, deepens the understanding of the formation of ecoambiguity on account of eco-Marxism, and predicts possible paths to a green globe. Coordinated cooperation with developed countries and developing countries is necessary.