探索大自然的趨勢揭示了當代人希望更多地了解周圍那些被認為人類尚未對過度干預之環境的願望。而洞窟探險是其中一種探索大自然的特殊形式，風險較高，可及性較低，目的是揭開自然中較陌生的部分。以洞穴探險為背景的敘事並不少見。然而，在那些描寫地下世界的敘事中，大自然的黑暗往往只代表一種負面形象。我認為，麥克法蘭在《大地之下》中的深度時間之旅雖然也涉及自然的黑暗面，但卻在敘事中為黑暗提供了另一種體現。黑暗不再代表人類的固有想像，而是揭示了一種不以人類為中心的與非人類共存的方式。它呼應了摩頓（Timothy Morton）提出的「闇黑生態學」（Dark Ecology）的核心，即呼籲重新思考長期以來被壓抑和否認的人類與非人類的共存關係。此外，《大地之下》中提到了多個神話，補充了麥克法倫探訪地底世界的旅程體驗。從這些地下作品到旅程本身，人們對自然的認知跨越了數十億年，從地球形成到今天，涉及人類和非人類。在本研究中，將以摩頓的「闇黑生態學」作為一個框架，用來審視麥克法倫旅程中的黑暗和《大地之下》中的神話，從而找出被忽視的與大自然的連結。與其說《大地之下》透過一種難以日常實踐的理想來塑造人們的生態意識，不如說它透過一種更貼近我們日常生活的文化敘事，提供了一個面對和討論大自然被隱藏之部分的機會。

The tendency to explore nature reveals a contemporary desire to know better about the surrounding environment, which people believe has yet to be overly intervened by humans. Caving is a specific form of exploring nature with higher risk and lower accessibility, which aims to unveil a more unfamiliar part of nature. Cave exploration as a background in narratives is not uncommon. However, among those narratives depicting the underworld, the darkness in nature tends only to represent a negative image. I argue that Macfarlane's deep time journey in Underland, though dealing with the dark side of nature as well, provides an alternative embodiment of darkness in the narrative. Darkness no longer represents a fixed imagination of human beings but a revelation of a less anthropocentric coexistence with nonhumans. It echoes the core of dark ecology developed by Timothy Morton, which calls for reconsidering the co-existence of human and non-human relationships that have been suppressed and denied for a long time. Several myths have been mentioned in Underland to complement Macfarlane's journey experience when visiting the underground world. From these underground works to the journey itself, people's perception of nature is shown across billions of years, from the earth's formation to the present day, and involves both humans and nonhumans. Timothy Morton's dark ecology is adopted as a framework to examine the darkness in Macfarlane's journey and the given myth in Underland to figure out the ignored connection to nature. Instead of shaping people's ecological awareness through an ideal that is difficult to practice daily, Underland provides an opportunity to face and discuss the hidden part of nature via a cultural narrative closer to our everyday lives.

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