Document Type
Thesis - University Access Only
Award Date
2008
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department / School
English
Abstract
This thesis addresses the paradox within American attitudes toward the land as illustrated in two twentieth-century novels, William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses (1942) and Don DeLillo's Underworld (1997). In reading these novels, although Go Down, Moses was written within the time period known as modernism and Underworld was written within postmodernism, I follow the recent developments in ecocriticism to show how both texts illustrate our inextricable ties to the land. I show that these novels, read through the lens of this criticism, can help close the gap between the human and the land, between our rhetoric about the land and our actual treatment of it, between the reality that the "fruited plain" sustains us as a culture and the fact that we risk ravaging that "fruited plain" until it becomes barren.
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Faulkner, William, 1897-1962 Go down, Moses
DeLillo, Don Underworld
Land use in literature
American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Ecocriticism
Format
application/pdf
Number of Pages
151
Publisher
South Dakota State University
Recommended Citation
Schaap, Howard, "Ravaging the fruited plain : use and abuse of the land in Faulkner's Go down, Moses and DeLillo's Underworld" (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1481.
https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd2/1481