The Rusted Heart: An Ecopsychological Perspective on the Double Alienation of Environment and Mind in "A Life in the Iron Mills"
Abstract
Rebecca Harding Davis is known for her direct depiction of the dramatically changing realities of industrialised American society, particularly in Life in the Iron Mills. This work was written in the first half of the 19th century at the height of the wave of immigration, urbanisation and industrialisation in America. The changes Wheeling experienced in a short period of time directly altered the lives of the people at the bottom of the social ladder during that era, causing dramatic upheaval in the social hierarchy and bringing about corresponding changes in the environment. From an ecopsychological perspective, the interaction between the environment and humans is a complex and dynamic process that reveals the inextricable link between human behaviour and the external world. Changes in the environment trigger a series of chain reactions at the social and individual levels. The purpose of this paper is to analyse from an ecopsychological point of view the environmental pollution, the difficult situation of the workers at the bottom brought about by social division, and the physical and mental alienation of the workers under this series of drastic changes, all of which indicate the negative impacts of the wave of industrialisation in the United States brought about by the people at the bottom. Thus, it reveals the physical and mental oppression of a natural person who is swept away by the wave of society and is unable to control himself, and explains its corresponding practical significance.
References
- Yi Fang. (2004). Theoretical review of ecological psychology (Doctoral dissertation). Nanjing Normal University.
- Harris, S. M. (1991). Rebecca Harding Davis and American Realism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Jiang, L. J. (2002). A historical examination of environmental pollution and its control in industrial cities of the United States (1870s-1940s) (Doctoral dissertation). Northeast Normal University.
- Li, S. (2021). On the narrative strategy of A Life in the Iron Factory. Literary Education (Next), 03, 20-22.
- Gatlin, J. (2013). Disturbing aesthetics: Industrial pollution, moral discourse, and narrative form in Rebecca Harding Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills." Nineteenth-Century Literature, 68(2), 201-233.
- Fang, F., & Li, S. (2018). Women's writing of industrial reality - A Life in the Iron Works and the early construction of American realism. Zhejiang Journal, 04, 190-197.
- Schocket, E. (2000). "Discovering some new race": Rebecca Harding Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills" and the literary emergence of working-class whiteness. PMLA, 115(1), 46-59.
- Wang, J. (2001). From rural to urban society - A study of urban transformation in the United States, 1870-1920 (Master's thesis). Central China Normal University.
- Jin, L. (2017). Alienation and redemption: Life in the Iron Mills and industrialized society in nineteenth-century America. Foreign Literature, 05, 3-13.
- Hughes, S. H. (1997). Between bodies of knowledge there is a great gulf fixed: A liberationist reading of class and gender in "Life in the Iron Mills." American Quarterly, 49(1), 113-137.
- Hesford, W. (1919). Literary contexts of "Life in the Iron Mills." American Literature, 49(1).