Thomas Wolfe's Train as Symbol

train--its stations, tracks, locomotives, freight cars, day coaches, pullmans, its lonely and departing whistle-wail (Web 106)--permeates writings of Thomas Wolfe. love trains, (Letters 624), wrote. Wolfe's George Webber thought that of most wonderful things world is experience of being on a train, where is different. is a miracle of man's handiwork, and everything about it is eloquent of human purpose and direction.... One's own sense of manhood and of mastery is heightened by being on a train (You Can't 55). A student of Wolfe's at New York University remembered how harsh, shrill, sustained sound of steel wheels against steel when a subway screeched on a turn struck a resonant and sympathetic chord his [Wolfe's] body (Mandel 98). Indeed, Wolfe responded fervidly to whole complex of world. Friends observed that at great Chicago terminal he virtually counted innumerable railway (Braswell 20). Of major symbols throughout Wolfe's fiction, is most pervasive (Beja 302). Not only is it a symbol with various interpretations, but its massive, solid presence is indispensable to forward movement of action and plot. Wolfe's first long ride, to World's Fair at St. Louis, came when was three. Years afterwards in dreams tenanted with elvish and mysterious beauty, recalled persona of three-year-old Eugene Gant how child in great wonder ... went to sleep to rhythmical pounding of heavy wheels (Look 53). From that time on, including novelist's last journey on transcontinental pullmans from Seattle to John Hopkins Hospital Baltimore, his love of trains endured. Decades after that first trip to St. Louis, estimated that had travelled not less than 125-150,000 miles [by train] my 34 years. (1) Wolfe's intense affection for trains and railway stations is illustrated by an incident which took place at a small depot across Hudson River as was awaiting arrival of suburban line to take him back to New York. On that bright evening the rails were like silver ribbons, and nearby were two freight cars, one red, other brown. When saw them, you'd think was sniffing fire like a Dalmatian or something, mused his New Jersey hostess watching him; he got all excited and his eyes came to light ... and threw his arms out and exclaimed, `Look! This is All over country there are little stations like this with a tree, there's a siding with a factory for loading freight cars. Look at rails.' He insisted that she and her husband kneel down and feel vibrations on tracks of a that might be coming. He told them to lean over and place their hands firmly upon ground, as if soil transmitted an elemental power through tactile pressure. Such a procedure was, of course, a reflection of Wolfe's need to touch an object before could describe it. `This moon is shining over all this eastern part of America,' said. And then arrived and enthusiastically leaped aboard. Afterwards, she who had witnessed his exultation thought to herself, Well, now I know why writes like does. He's love with America. (2) An example from each of Wolfe's tetralogy may perchance serve, before multiple emblematic ways used are cited, to indicate nature of his symbolic practice. About Eugene Gant's overnight trip to Charleston with friends his own age when was fifteen, Wolfe writes Look Homeward, Angel: The day-coach was hot, full of weary smell of old red plush. People dozed painfully, distressed by mournful tolling of bell, and grinding halts.... There was a crushed litter of sanitary drinking-cups upon floor, and a stale odor from toilets. young people with Eugene watched vast structure of earth sweep past--clumped woodlands, bending sweep of fields, huge flowing lift of earth-waves, cyclic intersections bewildering--the American earth--rude, immeasurable, formless, mighty (359). …