The New York City In American Novel In The Turn Of The 19th And 20th Century

The Industrial revolution in 19th century and the early 20th century was regarded as the watershed in human history. Metropolis developed very fast in this period. The New York City became a real international metropolis during this period.Aristotle said: "people came to cities to live, people living in the city is to make our life better". Urbanization has become a worldwide tendency. The study about city also spread gradually slowly from the historical perspective, geographic, to ecology, sociology, humanities Angle's perspective. The city's position in a literary text is constantly changing.Richard Lehan proposed concept of"the city in the literature"officially in the book of"The city in the Literature". He used space theory to research literary text. He hoped to "create a material text and take this text root in the intellectual and cultural tradition - namely history". Richard considered, each of the novels are to create their own reality, "those who emerge from the text of city image, also will be greater part of the narrative reality."And my research was based on the methodology of this study above all. Applying the theory of the space to literature investigation, hoped that through the 20th century American novel research and different writer's words, establish a "words city" based on the text, a New York in the words.The article is divided into four parts. Each part of the text according to different sides of New York, trying to restore a complete "New York". The first part, it compared New York to a magnet, "desire" is its magnetic force, while "desire" symbol is the "woman" and "money". Street girl Maggie, Sister Carrie, and Daisy from "the great Gatsby", who were the different groups of women lived in New York, Maggie was born in New York's slums, Kerry was a girl from abroad to New York looking for happiness, and Daisy was the upper people born in long island, New York. Maggie was ruined by her own desires and Indifference of affection, Kerry was satisfied with her material life but however her inner upper was still lonely. And Daisy's in "the great Gatsby" completely became a symbol. In cities, women image as the symbol of desire existed in texts. Females are symbols of the city. Male as watchers, tried to but can't have, what suggesting that the relationship between the city and male - "the hero longing to understand this city, but cannot enter its essence". Meanwhile New York attracted people from all over the world with its own charm.The second part of the article, describe New York from the angle of bottom society in New York. The main research object is O·Henry's novels. We can see the lower crowd life although poverty, but also full of affection with comparison. And the third part's starting point is "old New York", focusing on the men and women under the oppression of the "old New York" family ideas and New York upper social traditions. Their material lives were richer than the average persons, but innermost being were lonely.The fourth part summarized the relationship between literature and city and the significance to research"the city in literature"on the basis of the above text analysis."Reading text has become a way of reading city". In the process of literary imagination, the real city became a literature image. Literary"mythed and discoursed them, constantly adding entity city with rich symbolism and cultural connotations, and to impact our 'true' city's cognition."...