Bright Engines of Life: Trains and the Railroad in Thomas Wolfe's the Web and the Rock

From time of inaugural ride on first American railroad in 1830, (1) and railroad have held a fixed place in America's consciousness, manifested by depictions of in literature and resulting in development of as an enduring feature of American literary landscape. American railroads reached zenith of their golden between 1900 and 1920 (Klein 29), during which time railroad became an integral part of American psyche (Martin 123). In Thomas day, railroad tracks were the device uniting and rails, as described by Richard Walser, formed a gridiron linking seacoasts to mountains and plains, and joining together, too, people of America, wealthy New York sophisticates as well as commonplace folk of North Carolina childhood Wolfe's 6). Look Homeward, Angel (1929) introduces readers to lifelong love affair with and railroad and anticipates magnificent (Donald 439) that would follow in one modest, understated, and unassuming sentence: All day, under a wet gray sky of October, Oliver rode westward across mighty state (Look 7). Within a short six years' time, but millions of words later, confidently proclaimed, I've written all that one could write, or need ever write, about a (qtd. in Donald 298). (2) Twenty-five years after pronouncement, C. Hugh Holman concluded that No American ... has been more poet of trains 178). Indeed, according to Joseph Warren Beach, No one has better rendered passion and romance of travel by train, power and mystery of locomotives than Thomas (97). Engineered out of huge railroad stations of his mind (Church 100), lyric and epic narratives remain unparalleled. From his early ride at age of three from Asheville, North Carolina, to World's Fair in St. Louis; to a transcontinental trip from Seattle to Baltimore in an effort to save his life; to return railroad trip to Asheville in his casket within a cypress shipping box, was always an integral part of Thomas experience. spent his formative years in Asheville, a popular resort town situated in heart of Blue Ridge Mountains, a place where wail of whistles and thunder of locomotive wheels on railroad tracks were frequent sounds of arriving and departing trains. More than any other symbol, Walser notes, the is signature... (Thomas 66), and whole complex of world Wolfe's 3) infuses his writing. characterized his own writing about as including everything from vastly expansive to minutely thorough, desperately evocative descriptions of undercarriage, springs, wheels, flanges, axle rods, color, weight, and quality of day coach of an American railway train (Story 42). Writing with flourish and passion about most commonplace of street railways, elevated trains, subway trains, railroad tracks, and stations, celebrates hurtling across country through darkness of night, winding cautiously down steep mountainsides by day, gliding into distant valleys, and rushing past farmland and through vacant towns (Johnson 112). Walser writes, The train--its stations, tracks, locomotives, freight cars, day coaches, pullmans, its 'lonely and departing whistle wail'--permeates writings of Thomas Wolfe like nothing else Wolfe's 3). extensive cataloging of all things related to and railroad generates sequences and furthers themes as varied as seamless integration of with natural world, manifestation of as a divisive rather than unifying force, and as a means to articulate social issues pertaining to and illustrative of basic human rights and denial of same. …