“寂寞的汽笛”——空间批评视域下《火车梦》中的生存困境分析

“Lonesome Whistle”—An Analysis of the Existential Predicament in Train Dreams from the Perspective of Spatial Criticism

美国作家丹尼斯·约翰逊的中篇小说《火车梦》以第三人称视角讲述了普通人罗伯特·格兰尼尔从二十世纪初到六十年代里琐碎却充满波折的生活故事。文章借助空间批评理论解读《火车梦》,通过分析小说中的地理空间、心理空间和社会空间,旨在探究二十世纪美国西部工业扩张造成人们心灵的迷惘,揭示出时代风云变幻中现代主体的生存困境,从而引发读者对工业化时代的社会弊病的思考。Train Dreams, one of American writer Dennis Johnson’s novellas, displays the ordinary but turbulent life of Robert Grainier from the early 20th century to the 1960s from a third-person perspective. This paper attempts to analyze Train Dreams from the perspective of spatial criticism. By analyzing the topographical space, mental space, and social space in the novel, this paper aims to explore people’s confusion caused by the industrial expansion of the western United States in the 20th century, revealing ordinary people’s existential predicament in the changing times, and thus provoking readers to think about the social ills of the industrialized era.