此篇論文意欲探討從不同的觀點來探索安妮•普露所著之懷俄明故事集中所呈現的美國西部。在三個章節中，我各以不同的觀點作為探索的基礎，個別來討論：第一章以歷史、第二章以區域文學的學術討論中常被拿來使用的「地方意識」 (a sense of place)、第三章則以文學中的「怪誕」(grotesque)。在第一章中，我討論普露如何扭轉自透納(Frederick Jackson Turner)出版〈邊境之重要性〉一文以後的西部刻板印象。並以歷史學者藍立可(Patricia Limerick)的學說為輔，檢視神話化後的西部印象如何透過媒體與旅遊文化深入美國文化，使得西部逐漸虛擬化，並在現實中成為被邊緣化的區域。對此，我提出普露的懷俄明故事能藉由呈現非傳統的西部故事，引發出對於西部的新看法，並且使得西部以外的居民跨越刻板印象，真正與西部面對面。
第二章中我討論了懷俄明故事中所呈現的「地方意識」。我認為普露的「地方意識」並不單純只有純粹歡喜的「戀地情節」(topophilic feelings)，反而是各種複雜的人與地景的關係。藉由故事中所呈現的各種不同的人與地景的關係，普露同時也揭露了城市與農村間的衝突。這種衝突來自於城市生活中人類對於地景和個人生活以外的世界無感而來。但就在都市對農村視而不見時，農村卻也推拒著都市，造成兩者的分隔愈大。在此種情況下，我認為普露以她在這「地方意識」中所提倡的「一切都是相連的」概念，為兩造提供了一條互相溝通的管道，使兩者互通有無。
在最後一章中，以文學中的「怪誕」(grotesque)為出發點，我探討了普露的寫作風格，以及這種寫作風格如何使讀者能夠進入懷俄明的內部文化，一窺其所有的各種矛盾與怪誕。同時，我也探討普露如何以「怪誕」為文體編織出內容錯綜複雜且具挑戰性的文本，而這文本又如何使讀者在既困惑又挑戰的閱讀過程中，不停地藉由來回質疑文本與自身的知識與經驗以求理解作品。我提出，在這樣的閱讀過程中，讀者不僅能與文本中所呈現的非典型西部或懷俄明產生連結，同時也提供讀者一個機會檢視自身與其所處文化中的衝突、掙扎、與怪誕。

In this thesis I try to discover the American West in Annie Proulx’s Wyoming Stories. I do so in three chapters, each devoted to a different approach of the stories: chapter one looks at Proulx’s work from the point of view of history, chapter two from that of sense of place, and chapter three looks at the grotesque elements in the Wyoming Stories. While approaching Wyoming Stories with a historical perspective, I discuss how Proulx reverses the stereotypical Western images that have been widely accepted since Frederick Jackson Turner published his “The Significance of Frontier.” I use historian Patricia Limerick’s historical observations, which discover the intertwined relationship of the mythisized West and American culture, to be my theoretical base to examine how the stereotypes of the American West create a virtual American West while marginalizing the real American West. I argue that Proulx’s Wyoming Stories break the Western myths and suggest that the region has many of its own stories to tell. By presenting an unconventional Western image to readers, the stories also invite new perspectives on the region which may lead more outsiders to see the West without stereotypes.
In chapter two, I argue that Proulx’s stories contain a “sense of place” that does not resemble the joyous topophilic feelings usually associates by that phrase, but that rather, presents complicated relationships between humans and the landscape. By presenting different relationships between humans and landscapes in her Wyoming stories, Proulx also exposes urban-rural conflicts that result from an urban living style that turns away from landscapes and “the world out there.” However, as the urban pushes the rural far away, Proulx suggests that the rural, also rejects the urban. Nevertheless, I argue that, Proulx establishes in her stories a communal path for both sides with her sense of place that stresses that “everything is linked.”
In the third chapter, I turn to the grotesque to discuss Proulx’s writing style and how this style leads the readers into the inner culture of Wyoming that is itself grotesque and full of contradictions. I also argue that with the form of grotesque, Proulx’s stories weave complex and challenging texts that often confuse and challenge readers so that they have to constantly work with the stories, questioning them as well as their own experiences and knowledge in order to make sense out of the stories. And such a process not only allows the readers to, again, connect to a Wyoming or American West that does not exist in the stereotypes, but also provides a chance for readers to see conflicts, struggles, and grotesques in themselves and their own cultures.

論文審定書……i

摘要……………ii

Abstract……….iv

Introduction........1

Chapter one: At Close Range: Prospecting the American West……....7

Chapter Two: Connecting to the Landscape: Annie Proulx’s Sense of Place………..35

Chapter Three: Discovering the Grotesque in Fine Just the Way It Is…………...64

Conclusion……………94

Bibliography……………99

Allen, Barbara. “Regional Studies in American Folklore Scholarship.” Sense of Place: American Regional Cultures. Ed. Barbara Allen & Thomas J. Schelereth. Lexington: U P of Kentucky, 1990.

Anderson, Sherwood. “The Book of Grotesque.” Winesburg, Ohio. Ed. Charles E. Modlin and Ray Lewis White. New York: Norton, 1996.

Arosteguy, Katie O. “’It was all a hard, fast ride that ended in the mud’: Deconstructing the Myth of the Cowboy in Annie Proulx’s Close Range: Wyoming Stories.” Western American Literature 45.2 (2010): 116-36.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. “The Grotesque Image of the Body and Its Sources.” Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Bloominton, IN: Indiana U P, 1984.

Baym, Nina. “Old West, New West, Post West, Real West.” American Literary History 18.4 (2006): 814-28.

Cox, Christopher. “Annie Proulx, the Art of Fiction, No. 199.” Paris Review 2009. 28
Jan. 2011 <http://www.theparisreview.org/ interviews/5901/the-art-of-fiction-no-199-annie-proulx>.

Durran, Stephanie. “The Influence of the Annales School on Annie Proulx’s Geographical Imagination.” Hunt. 11-23.

Ellis, Jeffery C. “On the Search for a Root Cause: Essentialist Tendencies in Environmental Discourse.” Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Ed. William Cronon. New York: Norton, 1996.

Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature. New Jersey: Princeton U P, 1982.

Humanities. Katz and Mahoney. 6-25.

Hunt, Alex. ed. Geographical Imagination of Annie Proulx: Rethinking Regionalism. Lanham: Lexington, 2009.

Katz, Wendy J. and Timothy R. Mahoney. Ed. Regionalism and the Humanities. Lincoln: UP of Nebraska, 2008.

Kayser, Wolfgang. The Grotesque: In Art and Literature. trans. Ulrich Wesstein. New York: Columbia U P, 1981.
Kowalewski, Michael. “Contemporary Regionalism.” A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America. Ed. Charles L. Crow. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.

Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest. New York: Norton, 1987.
---. Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West. New York: Norton, 2000.

Proulx, Annie. Close Range. 1999. Film tie-in ed. London: Fourth Estate-Harper Collins; London: Harper-Perennial, 2004.
---. Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2. London: Harper Perennial, 2006.
---. Fine Just the Way It Is. New York: Scribner, 2008.
---. “Dangerous Ground: Landscape in American Fiction.” Katz and Mahoney. 6-25.

Reynolds, Susan Salter. Interview “Writer’s No Longer at Home on Range.” Los Angeles Times 18 Oct. 2008. 15 March 2011 <http://articles.latimes.com/2008 /oct/18/entertainment/et-proulx18>.

Stegner, Wallace. “Why I Like the West.” Marking the Sparrow’s Fall: The Making of the American West. Ed. Page Stegner. New York: Owl Books-Henry Holt, 1998. 96-105.

Testa, Matthew. “Exclusive PJH Interview: At close range with Annie Proulx.” JH Weekly 7 Dec. 2005. 20 March 2011 <http://www.planetjh.com/music_ arts_culture/A_100138.aspx>.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. 1974. New York: Columbia U P, 1990.

Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. 1920. New York: Dover, 1996.
Weltzien, O. Alan. “Annie Proulx’s Wyoming: Geographical Determinism, Landscapes, and Caricature.” Hunt 99-112.

Worstor, Donald. Under the Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992.