A Study On Landscape Writing In Homer And Langley From The Perspective Of Cultural Geography

American writer Edgar Lawrence Doctorow(1931-2015)has been committed to post-modern writing experiments in which historical events and characters are used as text materials and integrating literary imagination and high humanistic concerns are combined as well.Homer and Langley is his literary creation that was published in2009,which depicts the story of a pair of “monster brothers” with a narrative style combining historical and fictional elements,showing the living conditions of ordinary Americans and the cultural history of the United States in the 20 th century with a unique perspective.This thesis attempts to interpret Homer and Langley from the perspective of cultural geography.Starting with the political landscape,urban landscape and residential landscape in the novel,this thesis intends to explore the oppression of ordinary people by the external world,the deterioration of the social environment and the reality that the Collyer brothers choose to resist in the novel.This thesis can mainly be divided into five parts.The first chapter briefly introduces Homer and Langley and its author,summarizes the reception of Homer and Langley in national and international contexts,and introduces a statement of the theme and main contents of the thesis.Moreover,this chapter also focuses on the definition of the concept of landscape by cultural geographers.The second chapter starts from the political landscape and interprets the political landscape represented by war and state apparatuses,attempting to analyze that the political landscape in the novel is the historical reality of oppression to ordinary people in society.By analyzing the depiction of the landscape of war,one can directly or indirectly feel the different oppression from the war through the different living conditions of the soldiers and the civilians who did not participate in the war.The third chapter describes and analyzes the deterioration of the social environment from the perspective of the urban landscape.Through the interpretation of the changes of streetscape in New York,the degree of deterioration of the urban environment in the context of industrialization and urbanization can be reflected.Combined with the description of the landscape of Central Park and the nightscapes represented by bars and nightclubs,social problems such as alienation of interpersonal relationships and degradation of moral standards are mapped.Chapter four starts from the residential landscape,focusing on the house where the Collyer brothers live as the analysis object and interprets the different behaviors and activities of the characters in the novel shown in the landscape,such as crazy hoarding and indiscriminate treatment of all people.It is concluded that the various activities carried out in the residential landscape are actually concrete manifestations of resistance to the external world.At the same time,the realistic reasons for their failure to resist are analyzed from three perspectives: society,family,and individual.The last part is the conclusion of this thesis,which summarizes the context and conclusion of this research.This thesis tries to interpret Homer and Langley from the perspective of cultural geography.Starting with the life of the characters in the text,it analyzes that the tragic fate of the Collyer brothers is the need of the age and the historical necessity.Through the interpretation of the subversive power contained in the novel and its guiding significance for the present,it aims to raise more concerns about various problems encountered in the process of rapid industrialization and urbanization.The author tends to deeply understand Doctorow’s literary creation and provides readers with a novel and unique perspective.