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Abstract
Ecocriticism, a holistic approach to literature that seeks to examine the relationship between man and his environment, maintains that literature cannot be approached in a way that sets man and nature in opposition to each other. Instead, it must be approached in a way that examines man as part of an ecosystem; he is neither master nor slave to it, but simply one part of an intricate system. In Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, a contemporary adaptation of Robinson Crusoe, Michel Tournier shows us that if man is to be complete and content, he cannot continue to view himself as existing apart from the natural world. He must instead begin to view himself as being part of the entire ecological system. Tournier demonstrates that if the natural world is to survive, man cannot continue to overpower his surroundings; he must learn to live in harmony with them.