In the global context of climate crisis and ecological collapse, Richard Bowers’ “The Over story” constructs a literary allegory of ecological trauma and redemption through epic narrative. This article takes the novel as the research object, focusing on the mutual construction relationship between its time art and ecological ideals, and exploring how the work innovatively realizes the literary representation and redemption path of ecological trauma through narrative form. Research has found that the novel adopts a tree like narrative structure of “root trunk crown seed”, breaking the linear time constraints; Through the dialectical analysis of natural time and artificial time, as well as the conflict between life time and physical time, we aim to criticize the temporal violence of industrial civilization; And relying on the narrative of anthropocentric violence and the perspective of alienation theory, the writing of trauma concretizes the diverse forms of ecological trauma. On this basis, the work constructs a redemption system of “deconstructing human centeredness, reconstructing natural divinity, and returning to ecological self” through deep ecological practice, ecological self-awareness, and collective redemption. This article combines the perspectives of deep ecology, Fromm’s theory of alienation, and ecofeminism to reveal the ecological critical consciousness behind the time art of novels, providing theoretical references for the trauma writing and redemption narrative of contemporary ecological literature.
Keywords: 'The Overstory', deep ecology, ecological trauma, redemption narrative, time art
