On the Narrative of Things in E.L.Doctorow's Homer and Langley
In E.L.Doctorow's Homer and Langley,the protagonists build a family museum of the remnants of civilization by hoarding things.The novel creates a vibrant material environ-ment by encoding 20th-century American history into endless objects,conveying a historical epistemology based on things-history can be regarded as a materialized past,a subtle and mutual constitution of human subjects and inanimate objects.Things bear distinctive narrative functions and contribute to the novel's material imagination of 20th-century America.They not only crystallize the truth of individual experience and collective memory,but also reveal the paradoxical relationship between the rise of American history and the protagonists'fateful fall.
narrative of thingshistorymemoryindividual identityE.L.DoctorowHomer and Langley
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