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The Representation of Race and Empire in Dennis Johnson?s Train Dream
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: English Literature
Abstract
The article focuses on how the book deals with the indigenous cosmologies to demonstrate how metaphysical insecurities that are present throughout much of Johnson's fiction pose a threat to the very idea of American nationhood, or as the novella's title parodies, the "American Dream," in this setting. The transcontinental railroads and the colonial property regimes that those railroads both sought and opened up are what I refer to as the narrative infrastructures supporting the account of how the American frontier became a nation-state. Train Dreams unsettles these narrative infrastructures. The study examines Johnson's disquieting ideas about property, empire, and finally race in three main sections. These interpretations demonstrate how the novella arrives at an indigenous critique of the United States as a settler colonial state.
Keywords
Frontiers, Fortune, Empire, Emotion, Endemic Critique
How to cite this paper
@article{1704371,
author = {K. Ruban, Dr. K. Sankar},
title = {The Representation of Race and Empire in Dennis Johnson?s Train Dream},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2023},
volume = {6},
number = {11},
pages = {1-3},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1704371.pdf},
abstract = {The article focuses on how the book deals with the indigenous cosmologies to demonstrate how metaphysical insecurities that are present throughout much of Johnson's fiction pose a threat to the very idea of American nationhood, or as the novella's title parodies, the "American Dream," in this setting. The transcontinental railroads and the colonial property regimes that those railroads both sought and opened up are what I refer to as the narrative infrastructures supporting the account of how the American frontier became a nation-state. Train Dreams unsettles these narrative infrastructures. The study examines Johnson's disquieting ideas about property, empire, and finally race in three main sections. These interpretations demonstrate how the novella arrives at an indigenous critique of the United States as a settler colonial state.},
keywords = {Frontiers, Fortune, Empire, Emotion, Endemic Critique},
month = {May},
}