Environmental Imagination in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping and Lila

This article considers how the natural environment is represented in two novels by Marilynne Robinson and also references her non-fiction work. While Robinson is an outspoken advocate of various social causes in her essays and public speeches, environmental themes do not appear very frequently in her non-fiction texts. However, in her novels and particularly in Housekeeping and Lila, nature a large role. These two novels have some significant connections, and yet they differ fundamentally in their environmental implications. This difference can be related to the difference between first- and second-wave ecocriticism.