ROHMAH ROMADHON NO. 107026001675
ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTEMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH JAKARTA
AN ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES USING
ECOCRITICISM I
N JAMES CAMERON’S FILM
AVATAR
A Thesis
Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty In Partial Fulfillment of the requirement for
The Degree of Strata one
ROHMAH ROMADHON NO. 107026001675
ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTEMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY “SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH” JAKARTA
i
RohmahRomadhon, An Analysis of Environmental Issues Using Ecocriticism in James Cameron’s Film “Avatar”.AThesis: English Letters Department. Letters and Humanities Faculty, State Islamic University“SyarifHidayatullah” Jakarta, August 2011.
The research is aimed at finding out the environmental issues which appear on Cameron’s film,Avatar, by analyzing the relationship among the characters. This research applies descriptive – qualitative method. To answer the research questions, the writer uses ecocriticism theory as the tool to analyze the collected data. This research uses verbal data and other nonnumeric data, such as dialogue and scene caption as the basic analysis and in finding solution of the research problems.
ii
APPROVEMENT
AN ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES USING
ECOCRITICISM I
N JAMES CAMERON’S FILM
AVATAR
A Thesis
Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for
The Degree of Strata One
RohmahRomadhon 107026001675
Approved by:
InayatulChusna, M.Hum Advisor
ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTEMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY “SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH” JAKARTA
iii Name : RohmahRomadhon
NIM : 107026001675
Title : An Analysis of Environmental Issues Using Ecocriticism in James Cameron’s Film
Avatar
The thesis entitled has been defended before the Letter and Humanities Faculty’s Examination Committee on October 18, 2011. It has already been accepted as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of strata one.
Jakarta, October 18, 2011
Examination Committee
Signature Date
1. Drs. AsepSaefuddin, M.Pd (Chair Person) ______________ ___________ 19640710 199303 1 006
2. ElveOktafiyani, M.Hum (Secretary) ______________ ___________ 19781003 200112 2 002
3. InayatulChusna, M.Hum (Advisor) ______________ ___________ 19780126 200312 2 002
4. Dr.H. Muhammad Farkhan, M.Pd (Examiner I) ______________ ___________ 19650919 200003 1 002
iv
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of
my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by
another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the
award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher
learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text.
Jakarta, August 2 2011
v
In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful
May peace and blessing of Allah by upon all of us
All praised be to Allah, Lord of the universe and the creator of human and
tribes, who has given His love, affection, and delicious health and time in doing and
completing the thesis. Peace and bless be upon to the greatest prophet who we all
adore; Muhammad SAW and to his family, companion, and his followers.
In this occasion, the writer would like to express her sincerest gratitude to her
beloved parents, Abd. RohimMukti and AisyahHusein, who have given all support,
motivation, and praysto the writer in finishing her thesis and study.
The writer also would like tosay thank to Mrs. InayatulChusna, M.Humas her
advisor for her time, guidance, patient, kindness, and contributions in advising the
writer to complete this thesis.
The great gratitude is also dedicated to these following people:
1. Dr. Wahid Hasim, M.Ag, the Dean of Letters and Humanities faculty.
2. Drs. AsepSaefuddin, M.Pd, the Head of English Letters Department.
3. Mrs. ElveOktafiyani, M.Hum, the Secretary of English Letters
department.
4. Dr. H. M. Farkhan, M.Pd and Mrs. Maria Ulfa, MA, M.Hum, as the thesis
vi
5. All lectures of English Letters Department who have taught and educated
her during her study at UIN SyarifHidayatullah Jakarta.
6. Her brother;Ahmad, sisters;Wafa, Khodijah, Fatimah and her little
brother, Adil, who let her had a brief appointment with his English
teacher, Miss Ade, that gave a new boast of spirit to her when it was about
to extinguish.
7. All of her classmate in English Letters Students Class of 2007,B classand
literature class, especially Tubbies (Lya, Bibah, Encha), Nisa, Aisyah,
Yaser, Any, Tania, Maya,Feni,Rimbi, Eva, Husnuland others who have
given her a hand in the process of completing this research.
8. All friends in UKM Bahasa FLAT.
9. To those that the writer cannot mention one by one either who directly or
indirectly helping her completing this paper.
Finally, the writer hopes this paper will be useful especially for the writer and
those who are interested in it. May Allah bless us.Amin.
Jakarta, August 2011
vii
ABSTRACT ... i
APPROVEMENT ... ii
LEGALIZATION ... iii
DECLARATION ... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Background of the Study ... 1
B. Focus of the Study ... 6
C. Research Questions ... 7
D. Significances of the Study ... 7
E. Research Methodology ... 7
F. Time and Place ... 9
CHAPTER II. ECOCRITICISM ... 10
A. The Definition of Ecocriticism ... 10
B. The History of Ecocritical Movement ... 11
C. Ecocriticism as Literary Criticism... 15
CHAPTER III.RESEARCH FINDING ... 20
viii
B. Data Analysis ... 28
1. The Difference Relationship between Human and Nonhuman Toward the Environment ... 28
1) The Relationship between Human and Environment ... 28
a. HumanOpinionabout Nature ... 29
b. Human Exploitation of Environment ... 35
2) The Relationship between Non-Human and Environment .... 39
a. Respecting Nature ... 40
b. Worshiping Nature ... 42
c. Dependent on Nature ... 46
d. The Deep Connection with Nature ……….. 47
e. The Power of Nature ... 51
2. The Statement of Avatar Film ... 55
CHAPTER IV. CONCLUSIONAND SUGGESTION ... 60
A. Conclusions ... 60
B. Suggestions ... 62
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 63
1 A. Background of the Study
During the last decade, the environment becomes the front-page news as
public tend to believe that apocalypse will be happened by unintended
environmental disaster. This is not only an inane talk but fact. High rates of
deforestation and forest degradation are common in many parts of the world, but it
was the rapid loss of tropical rain forests that particularly captured the attention of
the world’s media from the early 1980s onwards.More recently, it has been
increasingly recognized that many other ecologically important forest types, such
as temperate rain forests and tropical dry forests, are also being lost at an alarming
rate.1 It affects the world for some other issues such as global warming and
climate changing. Since then it has burgeoned and public starts to concern about
fate of the environment and takes increasing hold, initially in the West but now
worldwide.
Environmental damage is not only caused by human but by itself as well.
There are two major forces which can cause environmental damage; nature and
mankind. People believe that nature have some kind of magical power. So that
each culture have their own tales or mythological believe of nature’s power. By
the early 21th century, the universe has already been through varies natural
1
2
disaster in all over the world; hurricane, storm, earthquake, tsunami, indication of
mountain eruption, etc. It shows that nature have its own natural power beyond
human capability.
The environment was becoming an increasingly salient public concern and
a major topic of research in science, economics, law, and public policy and certain
humanities field as well, notably history and ethics.2 American, led by Cheryl
Goltfelty with her essays entitled The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary
Ecology (University of Georgia Press, 1996), established an institution for
environmentalist and natural perspective writers called the Association for the
Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) in 1992. ASLE has its own
house journal, called ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and
Environment), which started in 1993.3 So in America, environment was already a
burgeoning academic movement by the early 1990s. They focused on the critical
field that had previously been known as the study of nature writing.
The term of literary-environmental studies has some other terms that
environmentalists can freely choose such as environmental criticism, green studies
and ecopoetics but its best known as ecocriticism. Simply put, ecocriticism is the
study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment.4
Ecocriticism is enabling us to analyze and criticizeabout the world in which we
live, and about our (human) relationships with that world and with our fellow
2
Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, (USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p.3.
3
Peter Barry, Beginning Theory an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, 2nded., (UK: 2002), p. 161.
4
inhabitants.5 Most of all, ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of
their coherence and usefulness as responses to environmental crisis.6
Environmental issues, in turn, have become an increasing provocation
both for academic and for artist. It is inspiring many authors and movie makers to
put the issue in their work. Film, as well as other literary genres: poetry, prose,
short story, play or drama, is seizing the happening public issues at the definite
time then formulates it with the intrinsic elements of film. Films and stories are
reliably best media to deliver messages to other people and tell that there is a
problem that needs to be paid attention like environment.
Film is unique compared to other genres of literature. It exploits the subtle
interplay of light and shadow, manipulates three-dimensional space, and focuses
on moving images that have complex rhythm. Film communicates not only
through imagery, metaphor, and symbol; visually through action and gesture;
verbally through dialogue, but also directly through concrete images and sounds.
Last, film expands or compresses time and space, traveling back and forth freely
within their wide borders.7
There are some movie makers that extracted the environmental issues into
their film, for example Wall-E and Narnia 2: Prince Caspian. Those films portray
nature into the story as a main theme. They describe nature and how it gives
impact to human and non-human in a certain time and place. In Wall-E, the
viewers can see the damaged earth in a result of carelessness of human who make
5 Matthew Dickerson and David O’Hara,
Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis (USA: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009), p. 1.
6
Greg Garrard (2004), Op.cit., p. 4.
7
4
Earth becoming a place full of rubbish. Then human with their intelligence walk
away from the broken earth and live finite life in the space. Whereas in Narnia 2:
Prince Caspian, the viewers can see contravention between those who want to
take care of environment and those who want to exploit it for their own sake.
The other environmental film is James Cameron’sAvatar which the writer
chooses as the unit of analysis.Avatar has blasted its way to the number one all
time-box office spot and nine Oscar nomination.8The film has additionally
received various awards, nominations and honors, including in Academy Awards
and 67th Golden Globe Award. Later, the film, that wowed the viewers with its
special effect that spent massive budget for, is inspiring environmental activists.
The film released in 2009 instead of 1999, the planned released year, because the
necessary technology was not yet available to achieve Cameron vision of the film.
The film is set in the middle of 22nd century, 2154 for precise. The narration is
written by the producer, James Cameron, who produced the outstanding film,
Titanicand the famousAlien sequel film.
Avatar is a film about human’s9 group, RDA Corporation, who explores a
planet in Alpha Centauri star system called Pandora to mining the precious
Adam Rosenberg, Avatar: A Look at Its Box-Office Reign, accessed at August, 2011.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1629437/avatar-look-at-its-boxoffice-reign.jhtml. 9
closer with the native. Beside the air is poisoned for human.Na’vi in this film is
counted as the non-human10 alien character in this research.
Jake Sully is the main character of the film who also leads as a narrator.
He is a deformity ex-marine who came to Pandora as avatar driver replacing his
twin brother, a killed scientist. In the first journey to the wild life of Pandora, Jake
in the avatar body gets lost at the forest. But he is rescued by female native,
Naytiri, after getting sign from her god, Eywa. Then she takes him to her clan,
Omaticaya clan, to learn their lifestyle after the chief permitted.
Jake Sully reports his activities to both Dr. Augustine, the chief of
scientist, and Colonel Quaritch, the marine’s chief for different purpose. To
Augustine, he reports how Na’vi real life and the way they live with the
environment. To Quaritch, he reports where the location of unobtanium is and
tries to drive the native out of the place diplomatically to get the minim victims.
Na’vi has a spiritual relation with the environment11
. They tend to
dependent on nature12, especially to the sacred tree; the trees of soul, where they
believe their mother goddess, Eywa, live together with the ancestors and the soul
of dead people. Right under this tree is where unobtanium that human looks for
10 Non-humanity – a space alien, a machine, a symbolic novum – as a means of exploring
what it is like to have the label ‘different’ imposed on a person by some normalising system. Wolmark observes: The science fiction convention of the alien attempts to present otherness in unitary terms, so that ‘humanity’ is uncomplicatedly opposed to the ‘alien’; both Jones and Butler focus on the way in which the opposition seeks to suppress the others of both gender and race by subsuming them within a commonsense notion of what it is to be human. (Adam Roberts, Science Fiction (USA: Routledge, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002), p. 100)
11
Environment, (n) The combination of external conditions that influence the life of individual organisms. The external environment comprises the non-living, abiotic components (physical and chemical) and the inter-relationship with other living, biotic components. (Gareth Jones, Alan Robertson, Jean Forbes and Graham Hollier, Collins: Dictionary of Environmental Science (Great Britain: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990), p. 145)
12
6
lying. In the end, Jack Sully has to choose to whom he will fight and whom he
will protect.
From this film, the viewers can compare the difference of relationship
between human and the environment, and non-human alien with their
environment. Avatar film also shows vary relation between human and
environment, such as the power of nature upon human and other things, the
friendship between non-human alien and their environment, the exploitation
human did to the environment, and social moral messages about the environment
that can be taken from the film. These bring to the analysis of the statement13 of
film.
From the explanation above, the writer is interested in analyzing the
problem concerned on environmental issues and its relation with human in
Cameron’s film, Avatar, using ecocriticism.
B. Focus of the Study
The research is focused on the environmental issuesusing ecocriticismon
Cameron’s film ‘Avatar’ through analyzing the different relationship between
human and non-human alien characters with environment. Then it is analyzed the
statement that film make regarding environmental messages.
13
C. Research Question
The questions of the research formulate by the writer are:
1. How is the relationship between human and their environment; and
between non-human alien and their environment show in Avatar film
in term of taking care to the environment of the Pandora’s Planet?
2. What kind of statement does the film make aboutenvironmental
messagefrom those relationships?
D. Significance of the Study
The writer hopes this research would enrich the variation of literary work
analysis, especially about film on Letters and Humanities faculty. The writer has
the expectation that the readers can analyze the literary works especially film,
from various aspects, without forgetting and leaving the aesthetic and emotional
values that contained.
The writer also hopes that this research can give any significance and
information to the writer and the readers, especially for those who enjoy and
appreciate film from ecological perspective. The writer hopes this research will
help the reader to understand more about environmental works, especially
Cameron’s Avatar.
E. Research Methodology
Methodology of the research is including several aspects on research such
as method of the study, objective of the study, technique of the study, instrument
8
1. Objective of the Study
The objective of the research is to know the relationship between human,
nonhumanalien and their environment show in Avatar film and to know Avatar’s
statement regarding environmental issues from that relationship.
2. Method of the Study
Referring to the objective of the research, the writer uses discourse
analysis method.The writers focuses on the issues of environment in Avatar film.
The gathered data which are the problem found in Avatar film regarding
environmental issues will be analyzed by using Ecocriticism.
3. Technique of Data Analysis
In this research, the data would be taken as technique of analyzing
environmental issues by using ecocriticism. Data and sources are gathered
through some phases; (1) the writer watches Avatar film for several times; (2) the
writer gathers data including quotations, pictures, and ideas related to the research
questions; (3) the writer analyzes data in order to know the relationship of the
human, non-human and their environment in Avatar film according to
ecocriticism; (4) the writer formulates the result of the analysis with the aim of
finding the purpose of the film to make such relations. It will be supported by
4. Instrument of the Study
The researcher herself is the main instrument of the research.As the
subject, the writer is watching the film, understanding, making notes about film
quotations and scenes of the film regarding environmental issues, and analyzing
the data related of the research questions. The writer is also collecting, reading
and understanding some related data and sources.
5. Unit of Analysis
The unit of analysis of the research is Avatarfilm directed by James
Cameron and produced by 20th Century Fox, released in 2009.
F. Time and Place
This research took place in the Library of Department of English
Literature faculty of Adab& Humanities, the Center Library of SyarifHidayatullah
State Islamic University, and other libraries that provide the resources for the
10
human, throughout human cultural history and entailing critical analysis of the
term „human’ itself.1
The term of this green branch of literary studies is varied. In
The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1972) Joseph W. Meeker
introduced the term literary ecology to refer to “the study of biological themes
and relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt
to discover what roles have been played by literature in the ecology of the human
species.” Meanwhile, the term ecocriticism was possibly first coined in 1978 by
William Rueckert in his essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in
Ecocriticism”. By ecocriticism Rueckert meant “the application of ecology and
ecological concepts to the study of literature.” He concerned specifically with the
science of ecology.2
Cheryll Glotfelty explains further on The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmark
in Literary Ecology, that in tandem oikos and kritos mean “house judge”. A long
-winded gloss on ecocritic might run as follow: “a person who judges the merits
and faults of writings that depict the effects of culture upon nature, with a view
1
Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism. (New York: Routledge, 2004), p.5.
2
toward celebrating nature, berating its despoilers, and reversing their harm
through political action.” The Greek oikos, household, and in modern usage refers
both to “the study of biological interrelationships and the flow of energy through
organisms and inorganic matter.”3
So the oikos is nature, a place Edward
Hoagland calls “our widest home,” and the kritos is an arbiter of taste who wants
the house kept in good order, no boots or dishes strewn about to ruin the original
décor.4
B. History of Ecocritical Movement
Ecocriticism as a concept first arose in the late 1970s, at meetings of the
WLA (the Western Literature Association, a body whose field of interest is the
literature of the American West).5 From the point of view of academics,
ecocriticism is dominated by the Association for the Study of Literature and the
Environment (ASLE), a professional association that started in America but now
has significant branches in the UK and Japan. It organises regular conferences and
publishes a journal that includes literary analysis, creative writing and articles on
environmental education and activism. Many early works of ecocriticism were
characterised by an exclusive interest in Romantic poetry, wilderness narrative
and nature writing, but in the last few years ASLE has turned towards a more
general cultural ecocriticism, with studies of popular scientific writing, film, TV,
3
Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, (USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) p. 13.
4
Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (1996), op.cit. p. 69.
5
12
art, architecture and other cultural artifacts such as theme parks, zoos and
shopping malls.6
According to a prominent Ecocritic, Lawrance Buell, one can identify
several trend-lines marking an evolution from a “first wave” of ecocriticism to a
“second” or newer revisionist wave or waves increasingly evident today.7
1. First Wave Ecocriticism
For first-wave ecocriticism, “environment” effectively meant “natural
environment.” In practice if not in principle, the realms of the “natural” and the
“human” looked more disjunct than they have come to seem for more recent
environmental critics. Ecocriticism was initially understood to be synchronous
with the aims of earthcare. Its goal was to contribute to “the struggle to preserve
the „biotic community’”8
The word environmental is usually understood to mean the surrounding
conditions that affect people and other organisms. In a broader definition,
environment is everything that affects an organism during its lifetime. In turn, all
organisms including people affect many components in their environment. From a
human perspective, environmental issues involve concerns about science, nature,
health, employment, profits, politics, ethics, and economics.9
First-wave ecocriticism give special canonical emphasis to writers who
transcendentalists, the British Romantics, the poetry of John Clare, the work of
Thomas Hardy and the Georgian poets of the early twentieth century.10
2. Second Waves or Newer Revisionist Waves
Second waves or newer revisionist waves of ecocriticism has closer
alliance with environmental science, especially the life sciences. The
biological-environmental-literary connection reached its first major critical expression in
1974 with the publication of Joseph W. Meeker.11 Glen A. Love in his 1999 essay
Ecocriticism and Science: Toward Consilience? points out that a line of biological
thinking has been a constant and indispensable accompaniment to the rise of
ecocriticism and the study of literature and the environment. Biologically verified
evidence of environmental destruction and it was the natural connecting point, as
the emphasized, which can claim a permanent and important relationship to
human life.12
Meanwhile, William Howarth seems rather to favor bringing humanities
and science together in the context of studying specific landscapes and regions
(Howarth 1996), to which end geology is at least as important as the life sciences
(Howarth 1999). Ursula Heise, on the other hand, has recently turned to a branch
of applied mathematics, risk theory, as a window onto literature’s exploration of
10
Peter Barry (2002), p. 169.
11
New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (The Johns Hopkin University Press, Summer, 1999), p. 564.
12
14
the kind of contemporary anxieties.13 Then, others have also taken up the
argument that ecocriticism’s progress becoming more science-literate.
Likewise, the Carson’s book Silent spring is a great model. Carson had to
investigate a problem in ecology, with the help of wildlife biologists and
environmental toxicologists, in order to show that DDT was present in the
environment in amounts toxic to wildlife, but Silent Spring undertook cultural not
scientific work when it strove to argue the moral case that it ought not to be. The
great achievement of the book was to turn a (scientific) problem in ecology into a
widely perceived ecological problem that was then contested politically, legally
and in the media and popular culture. Thus ecocriticism cannot contribute much to
debates about problems in ecology, but it can help to define, explore and even
resolve ecological problems in this wider sense.14
Science’s “facts” are “neither real nor fabricated”: the microbial revolution
hinged on a certain kind of orchestrated laboratory performance, without which
science history would have taken a different path, but the discovery/invention was
not fictitious, either. Bruno Latour ingeniously proposes the neologism “factish”
(a collage of “fact” and “fetish”) to describe this understanding of the “facts” of
science: “types of action that do not fall into the comminatory choice between fact
and belief ” (Latour 1999: 295, 306).15
The discourses of science and literature,
then, must be read both with and against each other.
According to the former way of thinking, the prototypical human figure is
a solitary human and the experience in question activates a primordial link
between human and nonhuman. According to the latter, the prototypical human
figure is defined by social category and the “environment” is artificially
constructed. In both instances the understanding of personhood is defined for
better or for worse by environmental entanglement.16
C. Ecocriticism as Literary Criticism
Regardless of what name it goes by, most ecocritical work shares a
common motivation. The ecocritic wants to track environmental ideas and
representations whenever they appear, to see more clearly a debate which seems
to be taking place, often part-concealed, in a great many cultural spaces. Most of
all, ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of their coherence and
usefulness as responses to environmental crisis.17 All ecological criticism shares
the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world,
affected it and affected by it.18 An ecological perspective strives to see how all
things are interdependent, even those apparently most separate. Nothing may be
discarded or buried without consequences.19
Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and
culture, specifically the cultural artifacts of language and literature. As a critical
stance, it has one foot in literature and the other on land; as a theoretical
16
Ibid. p. 23.
17
Richard Kerridge and Neil Sammells, Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature, (USA: Zed Books Ltd, 1998), p. 5.
18
Ibid. p. xix.
19
16
discourse, it negotiates between the human and the nonhuman. Ecocriticism
expands the notion of "the world" to include the entire ecosphere.20
The ecocritical movement’s primary publications, the American ISLE
(International Studies in Literature and Environment) and its younger British
counterpart Green Letters, are remarkable among scholarly association journals
for their mixture of scholarly, pedagogical, creative, and environmentalist
contributions.21 ISLE is established in 1993 by Patrick Murphy to “provide a
forum for critical studies of the literary and performing arts proceeding from or
addressing environmental considerations. These would include ecological theory,
environmentalism, conceptions of nature and their depictions, the human/nature
dichotomy and related concerns.”22
Ecology, meanwhile, is concerned with an integrated, notionally holistic
view of human–natural systems, even though at any point or space these systems
– whether nominally organic or mechanical – are seen to be open and evolving.
Meanwhile a broadly ecological concern with human/nature and people/place
relations is a deep-rooted and perennial feature of the subject, implicit in some of
its Classical origins and explicit in much of its Romantic legacy. Ecological
concern has some terms and topics they usually focus on some questions about
family and community based on, identification between characters and places or a
mood and a place, life and death, and about human and environment
nature. All this can be expressed in terms of three major and recurrent topics in
literary and cultural history.23
1) Version of pastoral. Stereotypically, pastoral is a genre in which shepherd in
particular or country-dwellers in general are represented in an idyllically
idealized stat of simplicity and innocence, far from the complex ills and
excesses of court or city. Alternatively, country folk are presented as brutal
and backward. Typically, in many a piece it is the movement between these
states that drives the plot and informs the main issues.24
2) The city as second nature. Here alternatives tend to be framed in terms of
delights and distresses of urban living as a whole, without recourse to rural
comparisons. Above all it is the capital city, the Metropolis that is seen as an
interlocking system of worlds within worlds, an intricate network of cultures
and sub-cultures. The city is hailed from afar as a place of individual
opportunity and social mobility „the bright city lights’. But on further
acquaintance and reflection the city often turns out to be a place of personal
loneliness and social alienation, naked acquisitiveness and financial
vulnerability.25
3) Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias. The genre of science fiction has been
particularly influential in offering representations of imaginary places that are
variously utopian and dystopian. „Utopia’, from Greek ou-topos, is strictly
„noplace’ means an imaginary ideal place. Dystopia was a term coined later to
23
Rob Pope, The English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language, Literature and Culture, 2nd ed (NY: Routledge, 2002), pp. 160-161.
24
Ibid. p. 162.
25
18
designate an imaginary horrible place. And in fact, depending on one’s point
of view, most utopias have potentially dystopian dimension to them.26
Cheryll Glotfeltly makes an analogous ecocriticism’s phases similar as
Elaine Showalter’s model of the three developmental stages of feminist criticism.
The first stage is the “images of nature”, how nature is represented in literature.
But nature is not the only focus of ecocritical studies of representation. Other
topics include the frontier, animals, cities, specific geographical regions, rivers,
mountains, deserts, Indians, technology, garbage, and the body.
Second stage is to recuperate the hitherto neglected genre of nature
writing, a tradition of nature-oriented nonfiction that originates in England with
Gilbert White’s A Natural history of Selbourne (1789) and extends to America
through Henry Thoreau, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Terry Tempest Williams,
and many others. In an increasingly urban society, nature writing plays a vital role
in teaching us to value the natural world. Another effort to promulgate
environmentally enlightened works examines mainstream genres, indentifying
fiction and poetry writers whose work manifests ecological awareness.
The third stage, analogous work ecocriticism includes examining the
symbolic construction of species. How has literary discourse defined the human?
Such a critique questions the dualisms prevalent in Western thought, dualisms that
separate meaning from matter, sever mind from body, divide men from women,
and wrench humanity from nature. A related endeavor is being carried out under
26
the hybrid label “ecofeminism,” a theoretical discourse whose theme is the link
between the oppression of women and the domination of nature. Another
theoretical is that known as deep ecology, which is considering the philosophy to
explore the implications that its radical critique of anthropocentrism might have
for literary study.27
Lawrence Buell in the last chapter on his book (2005) believed that
“environmental criticism at the turn of the twenty-first century will also come to
be looked back upon as a moment that did produce a cluster of challenging
intellectual work, a constellation rather than a single titanic book or figure, that
established environmentality as a permanent concern for literary and other
humanists, and through that even more than through acts of pedagogical or
activist outreach helped instill and reinforce public concern about the fate of the
earth, about humankind’s responsibility to act on that awareness, about the shame
of environmental injustice, and about the importance of vision and imagination in
changing minds, lives, and policy as well as composing words, poems, and
books.”28
27
Ibid. p. xxiv.
28
20 CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS
A. Data Description
In this description of the data, the writer discusses about the kind of
relationship that human and non-human alien characters have with the
environment on Avatar film. Human are the people who come away from earth to
Pandora, there are Jake Sully, Colonel Quatritch, Dr. Augustine, Parker Selfridge,
Norm Spellman, Max Petel and Trudy. Whereas Na’vi as indigenous creature of
Pandora is categorized as non-human alien in this research, there are the
Omaticayan tribe such as Neytiri and Tsu’tey. Then, the extraordinary wild
animals, the deities, the plants and the landscape of Pandora are the environment
or nature. Nature is silent in our culture (and in literate societies generally) in the
sense that the status of being a speaking subject is jealously guarded as an
exclusively human prerogative.1 So, human and non-human alien characters are
the characters that can talk and think in this film while the rest of it that cannot
talk is categorized as environment.
Avatar has strong environmental issues and moral environmental values
on it. It makes strong separation between persons and places. The environment of
Pandora describes as a hostile environment, threatening nature and alienating
society. But in the same time, the Pandora’s environment also describes as a
1
friendly and hospitable environment. Avatar raises the environment issues such as
different opinion toward nature, deforestation, exploitation toward nature,
respecting and worshiping nature, dependent on nature and the power of nature.
To make easier to analyze, the writer tabulated the data related environmental
issues in Avatar film.
The tabulated data are described in table below:
No Classification Quotation and Picture Time
I. Human relationship with Environment
1. Human
assessment of nature.
Colonel Quaritch : You’re not in Kansas
anymore. You are on Pandora ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second and every day. If there is a hell you might wanna go there for are-and-are after a tour on Pandora. Up there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squads in the mud want to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes.
00:00:06
00:06: 43
00:06:07
Norm: Grace Augustine is a legend. She’s the head of the Avatar program. She wrote the book. I mean literally wrote the book on Pandoran Botany.
Max: Well that’s, she like plants better than
people.
22
Parker (to Augustine): This is why we’re here,
unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells
for 20 million a kilo. That’s the only reason. It’s what pays for the whole party. It’s what pays for
your science.
00:13:00
Parker: Their damn village happens to be resting on the richest Unobtanium deposit within 200 clicks in any direction. I mean. Look at all that chatter.
Jake: You’ll get them to move. What if they won’t go?
Colonel: I’m betting that they will.
Parker: Okay. Look. killing the indigenous looks bad but there is one thing that shareholders hate
more than bad press and that’s a bad quality statement. I don’t make up the rules. So just find
me a carat. Then get them to move. Otherwise, this is gonna have to be all stick. Okay?
Colonel: you got three months. That’s when the
dozers get there.
Jake: Back on earth, these guys were army dogs, marines. Fighting for freedom. But out here, they are hired guns. Taking the money, working for the company.
00:05:34
Jake: …. They can fix the spinal if you got the
00:57:08
01:24:58
01:26:18
01:38:57
01:38:38
24
01:40:04
Jake: Probably, I’m just talking to the tree right
now. But if you there, I need to get you hands up. If Grace is with you, look into her memories.
See the world we come from. There’s no green
there. They killed their mother and they gonna do the same here.
02:03:26
II Non-Human Alien Relationship with Environment
1. Respecting Nature
00:36:15
Jack : Hey, wait! I just wanna say thanks for killing those things.
Neytiri : Don’t thank! You don’t thank for this. This is sad. Very sad only.
Jack : Ok. I’m sorry. Whatever I did I’m sorry.
Neytiri : This is your fault. They don’t need to die.
00:36:46
“I see you, brother and thank you. Your spirit
goes with Eywa. Your body stays behind to
become part of the people.”
01:02:18
2. Worshiping
nature Norm: Who’s Eywa? Only their deity. Their Goddess made up of all living things. Everything
they know.
00:31:20
Neytiri: I was about going to kill him but there
was a sign from Eywa. 00:43:13
00:31:55
Tsu’Tey: These demons are forbidden here. Neytiri : There is a sign. There is a matter for the Tsahik.
Tsu’Tey: Bring him.
00:41:18
Tsahik : My daughter you will teach him our way to speak and walk as we do.
Neytiri : Why me? This is not fair.
Tsahik : It is decided. My daughter will teach you our way. Learn well, Jake Sully. Then we will see if your insanity can be cured.
00:44:55
Jack (narrator): Na’vi says Eywa will provide
life. But with no hope, no home, there is only one place they could go.
Dr. Augustine: I’m with her, Jake. She is real. 01:56:12
3. Dependent on nature
00:46:10
26
Jack: I try to understand this deep connection people have to the forest. She talks about a network of energy that flows to all living things. She says all energy under borrowing and one day has to give back.
01:01:34
4. The deep connection with nature
Neytiri: That is Tsahaylu, the bond. Feel it. Feel her heart beat, her breath. Feel her strong legs. You may tell her what to do inside. For now, say where to go.
00:50:35
00:42:35
00:57:09
01:54:24
Augustine: What we think we know is there is some kind of electro chemical communication between the roots of the trees like the synopsis between your own chromosomes. And each tree has ten to the four (104) to the trees around it and ten to the twelve (1012) on Pandora. It’s more connection than human brain.
5. The power of nature
00:35:35
Tsahik: The great mother may choose to save all that she is in this body.
Jake: Is that possible?
Tsahik: She must pass through the eye of Eywa and return but Jake Sully, she is very weak. Jake: Hang on, Grace. They gonna fix you up.
01:55:08
Grace: The tree of Souls, Yvetryar Ramounom, is their most sacred place. See the flux Vortex on the screen?
Trudy: Yeah, that messed up my instrument. Grace: There is something really interesting going on there biologically.
01:11:51
02:14:30
12:16:18
28
B. Data Analysis
Ecocriticism is known as the study of biological themes and relationships
which appear in literary works.2 Avatar raises the environment issues such as
deforestation, exploitation toward nature, and the power of nature so that it can be
analyzed using ecocriticism. However, ecocriticism is concerned not only with the
attitude to nature expressed by the author of a text, but also with its patterns of
interrelatedness, both between the human and the nonhuman, and between the
different parts of the non-human world.3
1. The Difference Relationship Between Human and Nonhuman Alien Toward the Environment
As mention before, this film shows different relationship toward the
environment. The writer classifies the relationship of the environment into two
different kinds of relationship: human relationship with the environment and
non-human alien relationship with the environment. The contradictory relationships
emerge from the different attitude and opinion about the environment from each
character. Here is the complete analysis.
1) The relationship between human and the environment
Human are the people who come from earth to Pandora. Unlike Na’vi,
human consist of many different types of characteristics that represent different
cultures and knowledge. Because of the background differences, there are also
different attitudes and viewpoints toward environment among human. From a
human perspective, environmental issues involve concern about science, nature,
2
Ibid, p. xx.
3
health, employment, profits, politics, ethics, and economics.4 Thus the different
point of view or perspective or knowledge brings the different understanding and
attitude that lead into disagreement among themselves.
But above all, human share the same main opinion about nature which is
that the environment is the profitable thing. Later, this opinion leads human to do
some explorations to the environment that often bring bad consequences to the
environment itself.
a. Human Opinion about Nature
Human think that the wild environment or nature is menace and hideous
place. They see nature as the enemy that should be taken over. They prepare
themselves to do invasion with the high technology brought from Earth so they
could control them. From the beginning of the film when new people are coming
to Pandora, Colonel is welcoming them with a warning about how cruel the
Pandora is.
Colonel Quaritch : You’re not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second and every day. If there is a hell you might wanna go there for R-&-R after a tour on Pandora. Up there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squads in the mud want to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes. (00:06:16)
He says that Pandora, which is wildlife, is worse than a hell. He uses the
sentence that means people would prefer to go to the hell than to Pandora. He
even says that every living thing on Pandora; animals, plants, and the indigenous
4
30
want to kill them. This explanation shows explicitly that Pandora, from human
assessment, is menace and hideous.
Pict.1 Colonel Quaritch with his scratch on the face
The colonel’s appearance with scratch wound on his face is strengthening
what he says. He is not the kind that easy to get hurt and wounded, not even after
attending several big wars such as three times on Nigeria. But in Pandora, he got
the wound at the first day he came. It shows that even Colonel, the very strong
person by the appearance, attitude, and thought, can easily get hurt because
Pandora is so much danger.
Colonel Quaritch, represents the military perspective, says that the wildlife
is dangerous. The only thing he wants to do is to dominate the environment by
force. Environment, for him, is like the old conception of nature for man. Nature
is gendered female, while women, from the men viewpoint, are territory for
adventure, wildness to be tamed, owned and controlled.5 He talks for several
times about his wish to vanishing Pandora with the power, strength, and gun
rather than to use diplomatic solution. He does not think that the environment, the
strange one, and other creatures that live on it are deserved to be preserved but his
own creature, human, and his own profit.
5
Pic.2 Jake sees big arrows on
Tank’s wheel
The description of Pandora’s environment as hostile and alienating
environment even more is strengthen in many ways at beginning of the film. Jake
Sully, when he first time came down to Pandora’s land on human barrack, is
passed by the company’s tank that it has many big blue arrows on its wheel. It
shows explicitly, whether to Jake or to the viewer, that there is warfare out there
between human and alien or the indigenous of the planet.
Moreover, from the scientific perspective, nature is something to be
learned. Nature is something that should be preserved for it can be explored and
gives so much knowledge. But they do not see nature as the equal fellow
inhabitant but as the object to explore. It is presented by Dr. Augustine character.
Norm: Grace Augustine is a legend. She’s the head of the Avatar program. She wrote the book. I mean literally wrote the book on Pandoran Botany. Max: Well that’s, she like plants better than people. (00:10:20)
Max, her scientist colleague, is described Dr. Augustine as plant lover that
she likes plants better than people. She respects nature on her own way, different
from the Omaticayan Na’vi. She admires Pandora’s environment so that she keeps
learning on it because it is amazed her.
But above all, human share the same thought that nature is a profitable
32
Parker: I care what I care.
Parker (to Augustine): This is why we’re here, unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for 20 million a kilo. That’s the only reason. It’s what pays for the whole party. It’s what pays for your science. Comprendo? Now those savages are threatening our whole operation. We are on the brink of war, and you’re supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution. So use what you’ve got, and get me some results. (00:13:00)
Differ with Colonol Quaritch that represents the military perspective and
Dr. Augustine that represents scientific perspective, Parker Selfridge represents
the economic perspective, that nature provides money. People should take as
much as they can from nature for their own benefit because nature is there for
human. Parker says further that it, unobtonium, is what pays for the whole
operation they do on Pandora. So, the only important thing is the unobtanium
which produces a lot of money. Because money can make people’s dreams come
true, like the unbelievable avatar program that scientists do. This is what makes
Dr. Augustine as plants lover can do nothing about but follow along with him.
Finally, the right wing accuses environmentalists of putting nature before
people or the opposite is true. Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day,
understood that we are not protecting nature for nature’s sake. We are protecting
nature because it enriches humanity. Nature enriches us economically. it enriches
us culturally, recreationally, aesthetically, spiritually, and historically. It connects
us to one another, to our history and our culture, and to common experiences that
give us identity as a people.6
Parker: Their damn village happens to be resting on the richest
Unobtanium deposit within 200 clicks in any direction. I mean. Look at all
6
that chatter.
Jake: You’ll get them to move. What if they won’t go? Colonel: I’m betting that they will.
Parker: Okay. Look. killing the indigenous looks bad but there is one thing that shareholders hate more than bad press and that’s a bad quality statement. I don’t make up the rules. So just find me a carat. Then get them to move. Otherwise, this is gonna have to be all stick. Okay?
Colonel: you got three months. That’s when the dozers get there. (00:48:05)
The only thing Parker cares about is money. He worries a lot if the
shareholders who invest their money will get disappointment and take their
shares. It will be a loss for him. He doesn’t really care what way it takes to get
what he wants whether it is a diplomatic way by persuasiveness or the hard way
using violence. The viewers can feel the hatred and dismissed the native from
Parker’s dialogue and the word choices he uses.
Environment for human, generally, is only the tools to gain money,
benefits, and might as well be used for the betterment of the human community
than die neglected. They feel that to not do so would cause economic hardship. It
was money that mentions first in this film as the reason to do this job for Jake
Sully, the main character, and take a flight away to Pandora. Beside he already
had nothing left to do after dropping out from military because of his injury.
Man: … It would be a fresh start on a new world. And the pay is good. Man: Very good. (00:03:00)
The man from the company convinced him that it is a good and promising
job by mentioning about the good, and even the very good payment. The
repetition of the word „good’ from payment is to emphasize the word. They
mention it twice because money is the important reason for someone to do
34
More than that, Jake, the main character, implies that human does not
doubt to take other’s life only for money. To make it more dramatically, Jake
mentions money as “the paper on his wallet” as if it does not really precious at all
when narrate his twin murdered’ story.
Jake: Back on earth, these guys were army dogs, marines. Fighting for freedom. But out here, they are hired guns. Taking the money, working for the company. (00:05:34)
Moreover Jake implies that human (marines) on Pandora are changing
their habits because their reference there is only gaining money for the company
by following the Colonel’s or company’s order. Jake does the same as well.
Money is the major reference for human being. It can change people and can
make people to do something that is not supposed to be done.
Jake: …. They can fix the spinal if you got the money but not on dead benefit. Not in this economy. (00:05:16)
Furthermore, Jake gives more emphasize that economic is the main
problem at that time. Economical problem seems as the most preeminent matter
that the writer can assume it as the major cause of all the damage and the problem
comes after in this film. This is reasonable because economy affected all term of
life and subjects, including ecology. Economics informed by ecological
awareness, and an ecology that is economically viable. The two activities are
intimately and intricately interconnected. They are deeply coloured by the politics
of their particular historical moment, too.7
7
b. Human Exploitation of Environment
In most of the Western religious and philosophical tradition, the
nonhuman world is thought to exist for the sake of human beings. The
anthropocentrism sees that human beings have needs and the nonhuman world
exists to satisfy these needs.8 This believe and understanding lead human to do an
exploration and exploitation into other or nonhuman world. In Avatar, when
viewers come to see Pandora for the first time, the film shows first the place on
Pandora where human live. It presents the damage planet or forest that viewers
can assume that it is what human did to the Pandora’s environment.
Pict.3 Pandora’s mining Pict.4 Human station
The shot on picture 2 shows the plan is passing through the barren land
caused by mining in the middle of the green land. This is an evidence that human
affect harmfully to the environment. It changes the environment badly. In
addition, in the picture 3 there is also a barren, dry, and dusty land where human
decided to take it as their place to live. Human need land or place to build their
barracks, offices, laboratories, and airbase to advocate their civilization. But this
development affects and changes the environment mostly into bad condition.
8
36
Pict.5 The Pandora’s forest view
As comparison, the film then shows very different scenery in the Na’vi
place on the forest. It looks extremely unlike to the landscape where human lived.
It is still prosperous, green, and fertile.
From those pictures above the writer can see the difference of the
environment or landscape view and mood between where human live and where
non-human live. The scene which shows human place is dark, dusty and busy,
while the indigenous place or forest is green, calm and harmonious. It shows that
human brings damage to the land that changed the environment a lot in extreme
ways from the way it should.
Pict.6 Neytiri and Jake in the Tree of Voices
Pict.7 Cutting the Tree of Voices down
Pict.8 Jake is trying to block the
The film also demonstrates deforestation. It happens when RDA
corporation send out their huge tanks to cut down the holly tree, tree of voices, in
the morning right before Jake and Neytiri’s eyes. Tree of voices is the place where
the Na’vi believe their prayers will be heard and sometimes be answered.
Eventhough avatar is trying to block the deed, the drivers of the tanks keeps their
way to cut the tree down after getting the permission from Parker (pict.7), the
chief of the companies at Pandora.
Human tyranny to the environment that represents by their lumbering deed
makes the indigenous feel bad, sad, and angry but they could not do anything but
looking infuriately when the tanks vanishing their holly trees from far on their
horse’s back (pict.8). This event of lumber leads the viewers into the real conflict
in the film.
Pict.10 The home tree is falling down. Pict.11 Neytiri is screaming beside her
father’s body.
Pict.12 The staffs are looking sadly at the monitors
38
The deed continues the day after that. The company brings more troops
and tools to cut more important tree which is the huge home tree of Omaticaya,
the tree where the tribe lived (pict.10). Many indigenous died in this accident
including the clan leader, Eytukan who is also Neytiri’s father (pict.11). This is
the very touching scenes. The director presents this accident on the miserable
mood supported by sad background song and Omaticaya’s scream and sob. It also
focuses on the human sympathy-but-cannot-do-anything’s faces which are
looking the cutting process from monitors (pict.12). It creates some
compassionate response for them.
But human do not really care about it, especially Parker and Colonel
Quaritch, because on their mind they think that they already gave them enough
time to go and already sent messengers to warn them. It explicitly shows in
pict.13 that Colonel looks nature and the indigenous down by drinking coffee
while doing cutting tree process. Before this accident happened, the company sent
Jake Sully and Dr. Augustine to warn the Na’vi people to get off their home
because human, the sky people, were approaching on a mission to cut their home
tree down. But Na’vi decided to fight back with their arrows. They were tied up
Jake and Dr. Augustine instead. Eventhough their messengers were failed and the
Na’vi was still there, human keep going on their mission without doubt. They are
only focused on their mission, their job, and their ambition to take over the land.
But this crime is not stopping there, days after this, they come again to
destroy their biggest sacred tree where Na’vi owe its existence and hope. But this
resistance. They were gathered all the tribes over the Pandora to help them
confronting human’s coming attack.
Jake: Probably, I’m just talking to the tree right now. But if you there, I need to get you hands up. If Grace is with you, look into her memories. See the world we come from. There’s no green there. They killed their mother and they gonna do the same here. (02:03:26)
Moreover, Jake mentions that human already destructed their own home
which is Earth and they will also do the same to Pandora’s environment. It
explains that destruction is what human tend to do to the environment. They are
already vanished their own land and then they come to seek another land to vanish
and explore, so they come to Pandora. Furthermore, Pandora offers them a
promising profit.
2) The Relationship between Non-Human Alien and the Environment
The Na’vi have a unique relationship with their environment. They lived
harmonically with all organisms in the forest; animals, plants, and the deities. To
analyze the relationship between non-human alien (Na’vi) and their environment,
the writer gives more attention to how Na’vi treats and behaves toward nature.
They respect nature and worship it. They believe that nature have power and
connection that connected all organisms in their world.
Na’vi ways of life and relationship with nature are resemble to the one of
ancient history of religion called animism. Today it commonly refers to
perceptions that natural entities, forces, and nonhuman life-forms have one or
40
life and personal intentions), and consciousness, often but not always including
special spiritual intelligence or powers.9
a. Respecting nature
Differ from human, the Na’vi believe all life is sacred and should be
honored. This attitude includes paying respect to the plants and animals that
harvested or killed to provide their sustenance. When Na’vi should kill an animal
whether it is a self defense or a hunt for eating, they not mere kill them but feel
sad and thank them for their sacrifice. The Na’vi have a unique ritual after killing
an animal by praying for the animal they killed or hunted the peace and praying
for they own salvation. This ritual is only one from various rituals the indigenous
culture have. Rituals affirming the interconnectedness of the human and
nonhuman worlds exist in every primitive culture.10
Pict.14 Neytiri is praying beside the murdered dog
Naytiri prays beside the dying wild black dog one by one after killing
them in order to save Jake. After running off from the big monstrous wild dog
called thanator, Jake was lost in the forest. When the night came, the wild animals
surrounded him because he was noisy, according to Naytiri. So that he fought
9
Bron Taylor, Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (California: University of California Press, 2010), P.15
10
them. Then Naytiri came for helping him by killing some of the small wild dogs
in order to repel them after getting a sign from her God about Jake. But then,
when Jake said thanks to her, she was angry instead. She was angry because she
thought that those animals were not deserved died.
Jack : Hey, wait! I just wanna say thanks for killing those things. Neytiri : Don’t thank! You don’t thank for this. This is sad. Very sad only. Jack : Ok. I’m sorry. Whatever I did I’m sorry.
Neytiri : This is your fault. They don’t need to die. (00:36:46)
For Na’vi who live peacefully with nature, killing animals or any
organisms are unnecessary and disturbs the balance of life that their deity, Eywa,
is trying to protect. They understood that even animals have spirits that should be
respected.
Soon after three months living together with the Na’vi, Jake is used to be
with the Na’vi lifestyle and also with this ritual. So, when he is hunting an animal,
he prays for it, just like what is done by Neytiri before. By using Na’vi native
language, Jake prays “I see you, brother and thank you. Your spirit goes with
Eywa. Your body stays behind to become part of the people.”
Pict.15 Jake is killing then praying an animal
It means that he feels sorry for killing it but he has to do that for the
