摘 要

作为美国南方作家中的杰出代表，弗兰纳里·奥康纳在创作中会有意识或无意识地借助作品中的物质书写来展现传统与现代文明之间的冲突与矛盾。本论文主要分析两篇短篇小说《天竺葵》和《火车》中的物质细节书写，进而探究在美国新南方向现代社会的过渡时期地理空间与南方人迷失的身份之间的复杂互动。

关键词：弗兰纳里·奥康纳；物质细节；《天竺葵》；《火车》；现代南方“空心人”

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration… 3
   1. Material writings in The Geranium 3
      1. A brief introduction to The Geranium 3
      2. Writings of the urban architecture 4
      3. Writings of the geranium 6
   2. Material writings in The Train 7
      1. A brief introduction to The Train 7
      2. Physical space of the train… 8
      3. Writings of hometown… 10
3. Conclusion… 11

Works Cited… 12

Bibliography 13

“The Hollow Men” in the Modern South

—A Study of Flannery O’Connor’s Material Things in Two Short Stories

1. Introduction

As the most important representative writer of American Southern writers in the 20th century, Flannery O'Connor (1925.3.25 – 1964.8.3) held a proper place in the literature of the world. She died of a disease at the age of 39 which has been considered as “the biggest loss in American literary world since Scott Fitzgerald's death” (Zhang 46). Her writing style is witty and grotesque, full of gothic terror and violent charm of southern America, and also rich in religious themes and images. As she stuck to writing staring down death, in the short period of no more than twenty years of literature time, O'Connor had completed two full-length novels Wise Blood and Violence Bear it Away and thirty-one impressive short stories, part of which have been assembled in two anthologies of short stories A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything that Rise must Converge. In addition, O'Connor left a good deal of letters, prose and papers, which were compiled into a prose anthology Mysteries and Manners and a collection of letters The Habit of Being. The complete collection of her stories published after her death, covering all her prominent thirty-one pieces, was

awarded National Book in 1972. The Geranium and The Train are two short stories

collected in A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Although most of O’Connor’s short stories were written in her hometown Andalusia, their themes are not confined at all. The main themes are about southern culture, religion, race and humanity. The economy of the south went through a rapid development in the early 21st century, which brought about an enormous conflict between thriving modern civilization and remained traditional concept. In particular, the “traditions, and especially any sense of stability, were coming under attack as ‘progress inexorably made its way into the south” (Marion 17). “The Hollow Men” was created by T. S. Eliot in his poetry The Hollow Men in which he depicted the empty and collapsed spiritual state of western citizens in the modern civilization. T. S.

Eliot was keenly aware of the the feeling of lose and hollowness of modern citizens. O’Connor was deeply influenced by the poetry of T. S. Eliot during her graduate course. So reflecting upon the modern civilization became a considerable theme of O’Connor’s short stories as well. The Geranium and Judgment Day revealed that human nature has been confined and imprisoned by modern urban civilization. The Geranium was published in 1946 while O 'Connor was pursuing a master's degree at the university of Iowa and became part of O 'Connor's thesis in 1947. This story was later rewritten as Judgment Day, which was infused with strong religious affections. In a letter to a friend, O'Connor explained: "my first story…It's about an old man living in the ghetto in New York-so far, neither have I had an old man's life nor been to a ghetto, but I do know what nostalgia is.”(193) In The Train, a young man called Haze feels extremely uncomfortable on the train to the city. The development of the southern railway after the civil war has witnessed the progress of industrialization and decline of traditional southern America. O’Connor got sick on her train trip to the south and was sent to hospital as soon as she got off the train. In this case, she was extremely sick but had to be trapped in the train, waiting for the stop of the train. Her mood on the train was exactly similar to the character Haze in the story.