Wilderness

Abstract

The relationship between human beings and nature can be understood through a complex dynamic of love and hate, as illustrated in Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story The Wife’s Story (TWS). In the story, the wife represents modern humanity and its desire to dominate nature, while the husband represents an authentic form of nature, particularly the wilderness. This study applies Ecocriticism theory, particularly Garrard’s concepts of anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, and wilderness, to examine the relationship between humans and nature. Lacanian psychoanalytic theory is also employed to further examine the human desire for domination as symbolized through the language of love and hate. The study focuses on three issues: the relationship between humans and nature as wilderness, the reasons underlying humanity’s dependence on nature, and the proposition that anthropocentrism is ultimately an illusion. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, the study analyzes textual data from The Wife’s Story through an Ecocriticism and psychoanalytic perspective. The findings indicate that human limitations in confronting the unpredictability and uncontrollability of nature generate a desire for domination, which manifests in an anthropocentric worldview. This worldview produces a contradictory relationship with nature: humans embrace nature when it conforms to their desires but reject its wild and unpredictable dimensions when they threaten human control. The desire to dominate nature, therefore, reveals the limitations of anthropocentrism and supports the argument that human claims of superiority over nature are ultimately illusory.