Trains of thought: The railroad and consciousness in selected works by Hawthorne, James, and Cather.
Item
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Title
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Trains of thought: The railroad and consciousness in selected works by Hawthorne, James, and Cather.
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Identifier
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AAI9807969
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identifier
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9807969
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Creator
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Messina, Lynn Marie.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joan Richardson
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, American | American Studies
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Abstract
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This dissertation considers the role of the railroad in the developments of modern conceptions of identity and of literary modernism in America. It examines the connection between the experience of train travel and the portrayal of consciousness in three American novels, exploring the manner in which train travel has encouraged new ways of perceiving the human relation to time and space. This study examines three main perceptual shifts experienced during train travel that became integral to modern thought. The first deals with the way the passenger views landmarks passing at three different rates simultaneously; the second is seen in the rider's subjective perception of time's passage while traveling aboard a train; and the third deals with the cinematic aspect of train travel, prompted by the subjective assimilation and arrangement in consciousness of spatial details registered by the passenger looking out the window. I first examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables to consider the difficulties experienced when modern individuals try to integrate the perceptions of past, present, and future that are accentuated by the speed of a moving train. I then consider how Henry James uses the figure of the train wreck in The Ambassadors to depict the traumatizing effects of the rapid pace and the inordinate quantity of sensations assaulting the modern sensibility, as he demonstrates the uneasy transition from the Lockean train of thought to the notion of the stream of consciousness put forth by his brother William at the turn of the century. Finally, I examine how Willa Cather's My Antonia portrays the subjective consciousness as it dramatizes the relation between train travel, cinematic vision, and the fluid associations which occur in memory. The dissertation is interdisciplinary, drawing on works concerning the history of science and philosophy, literature and film studies, psychology and art history to argue its thesis and to explore the manner in which the experience of train travel has prompted new ways of apprehending and portraying reality and selfhood in the modern world.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
