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This thesis intends to analyze Nabokov’s consciousness of spiritual ecology embedded in Lolita through his presentation of the characters’ abnormal state of mind in the novel. The body is pided into three main parts. The first is about deviant desire of human beings. In this part, the thesis explores the deviant desire of main characters through the analysis of social and family background. The second part studies the moral disorder through the analysis of improper behavior of adolescents, especially Lolita and find out the root of moral disorder. The third part explores the manifestation and result of alienation. In conclusion, the spiritual imbalance of the main characters calls for the attention of the readers to learn to adjust themselves to foster a healthy mental situation.
Ecology was a branch of biology put forward by E.H.Haeckel in 1866, which mainly studies animals, plants and their relationship at the beginning. After 20th century, ecology has quickly become a comprehensive discipline with rich connotations. It has contained nature, society, environment, life, material and culture. Scholars have brought some new concepts such as culture ecology and literary ecology. Lu Shuyuan pided ecology into three parts: natural ecology, social ecology and spiritual ecology. “As a new branch of ecology, spiritual ecology studies the relationship between spiritual existence (human mainly) and its living environment (including nature, society and culture)” (Lu Shuyuan, 2006:75). On the one hand, spiritual ecology is concerned about the health of spiritual existence. On the other hand, it is concerned about the balance, stability and development of the ecosystem under the influence of spiritual existence. Spiritual ecology explores the interaction of human spirit and ecology. In other words, spiritual ecology studies our inner world and outer world, and deals with the relationship between man and society, between self and others, between self and inner self.
With social constant development and modernization, human living environment is greatly damaged and human nature and moral qualities are seriously impacted, which leads to the imbalance of spiritual ecology. According to Lu Shuyuan, the crisis of spiritual ecology is the mental crisis of human’s inner world. The major performances can be pided into two aspects: the deviation and mistake of human mind and the alienation of spiritual world: materialization, apperception, simplication and superficial of human and the deficiency of meaning, profundity, morality, historical sense, ability of communication, capacity to love and aesthetic judgment. The symptom of spiritual ecology imbalance can be seen from many aspects, for example, deviant desire, moral disorder, alienation of existence, vacancy in spirit and so on.
2. Literature Review
Since the publication of Lolita, this book has attracted much attention from the critic circle. There are large amount of researchers both at home and abroad working on this book from different angles.
As a famous novel with a controversial subject, some critics pay attention to its moral significance. They study Lolita from the perspective of ethics. In the book, there is unethical love between Humbert and Lolita and some descriptions of sex, which irritate some readers. Luo Xiaoyan holds the view that the author gives readers a warning that social ethic is a huge net. “All the people should move in the scope of the net, those who pass the net will be punished” (Luo Xiaoyan, 2012: 42).
However many scholars think that Lolita is not a didactic fiction, and critics should pay more attention to the art of the work. Free from moral issues, they tend to focus on the work itself. Some scholars turn to its themes. For example, some of them notice the tragedy in the novel. Not only Lolita and Humbert end their life tragically, but also Lolita’s mother Mrs. Haze and an important character Quilty. Critics point out that many reasons contribute to the tragedy. Zhu Yi and Jin Gang hold that the failure of family, school and society education pushes Lolita into the abyss of a tragic fate.