The Loss and Backtracking of Sense of Place - Soundscapes in the Town and the City
Shuyao Huang*, Joan Qionglin Tan
Citation : Shuyao Huang, Joan Qionglin Tan. "The Loss and Backtracking of Sense of Place - Soundscapes in the Town and the City" International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature 2018, 6(6) : 9-14.
The Town and the City is the first novel of Jack Kerouac, a representative of the "Beat Generation" in America. Different from other works with "free-flowing" prose-like artistic features, this semi-autobiographical novel is more traditional. It narrates the family saga of the Martins, who move from the small town, Galloway, to the big city, New York. Based on the key words of "soundscape and sense of place", this paper draws on the theories of soundscape, human geography, sociology and memory psychology to explore how Kerouac presents characters' various emotional experience in the processes of growth, leaving hometown and returning hometown by the description of soundscapes in different time and spaces. Meanwhile, it aims to elucidate the connection between soundscapes and the identity of characters, the construction and backtracking of sense of place in this novel.