Exploration Of The Truth Of Existence: A Phenomenological Spatial Interpretation Of Winesburg,Ohio

Anderson is good at analyzing people’s minds,so he is called “the first modern American psychological writer”.His representative work Winesburg,Ohio consists of 25 chapters,each of which deeply describes the loneliness of people in the small town.This thesis refers to the discussion on space in Merleau-Pontys theory of perceptual phenomenology,and analyzes the truth exploration of deformed people in Winesburg,Ohio in the alienated space in Ohio,body space and social space.The deformed people in the small town are faced with loneliness,anxiety,death and other survival issues.They ponder the meaning of truth in the alienated space,explore the truth in body space,and try to understand the meaning of truth in the social space.Chapter one discusses the alienated space in the book,including the dream and home space and abnormal things in the town.Truth first appears in the dream space of the old writer at the beginning of the story.In the repeated descriptions of home space,there are countless illusions about the truth,which,together with the abnormal things conceal the meaning of the truth and finally become the cage of people.Chapter two discusses the process of exploring the truth in body space.The deformed people need to break through the alienated illusions and fantasies to explore the meaning of truth in body space.In the body space of limbs,the grotesque people express the teacher-student affection through the hand,transmit the love and explore the meaning of sincerity.In the gender body space,the mother-child relationship interprets the truth of growth,and the sexual relationship explains the meaning of Eros.The meaning of death is continued in the aspect of time in body space where the deformed people experience the limited life time and the infinite meaning of life.Chapter three analyzes the understanding of truth in social space.Some people try to break through the predicament of thoughts and worldly desires and get rid of the alienation of loneliness and anxiety,while some just stay in the space of fantasized truth and escape from social communications,fully enclosed in alienation.Their explorations of truth reveal that the truth of Ohio lies in the community of love,trust,faith mutual respect and care between people which can soothe people’s anxiety.