Sohrab Tavousi; shohreh chavoshian
Abstract
Abstract Environment and its problems is the subject of study for many contemporary thinkers. Indeed, an environmental study is a field where humane and natural sciences, in the shape of man and nature, are combined. Ecocriticism is a branch of literary criticism which deals with the relationship between ...
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Abstract Environment and its problems is the subject of study for many contemporary thinkers. Indeed, an environmental study is a field where humane and natural sciences, in the shape of man and nature, are combined. Ecocriticism is a branch of literary criticism which deals with the relationship between literary work and its natural surroundings. One of the most important branches of ecocriticism is deep ecology. In deep ecology, the equality between human and nonhuman animals is of vital importance. In this regard, the research in hand, focusing on Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin, has criticized this novel based on ecocriticism and particularly deep ecology. This article shows how Nabokov has selected a structure based on a character whose most distinguished attachment is to a squirrel. Pnin, the protagonist of the story, is an exiled Russian professor of an American university and the only living creature that comes to his life now and then is a squirrel. The presence of squirrel is so recurring and significant that it tacitly represents the author’s special purpose in making such vicinity. Beside similarities between the main character of the novel and the squirrel, the novel in general has a similar structure to the shape and life of the animal. In this article, first the theoretical framework of the study including ecocriticism and deep ecology are defined, then squirrel’s life style, in city and in jungle, are depicted scientifically. The last part of the study includes the analysis of the researcher on the novel to investigate the complicated structural, as well as characterization, similarities between Pnin and squirrel. The article comes to the ultimate conclusion that Pnin is an example of Nabokov’s respect to nature and the equality, he believed, between human and animal which is also seen in his letters and interviews. This is similar to the principle deep ecology penned down during the same years Nabokov was handling Pnin.