Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)
Studies - Zoltán Simon: The Image of Technology in Selected American Novels of the 1920's
analysis of technology, literature, and culture in modernist America. His ambivalence toward technology and urbanization clearly pervades his 1925 novel, Manhattan Transfer. "A great deal is going to happen in the next few years. All these mechanical inventions —telephones, electricity, steel bridges, horseless vehicles —they are all leading somewhere," prophesies the real-estate agent at the very beginning of the novel; then he adds: "It's up to us to be on the inside, in the forefront of progress" (15). Mechanical inventions, progress, technology —these concepts seem to be central to Dos Passos's rather pessimistic vision of modernity. It is not technological development per se, however, that Dos Passos was protesting against; rather, it was the accompanying disappearance of certain human values. The acute problems with interpersonal relationships are made clear in the novel: friendships are superficial, marriages are breaking up, families are becoming dysfunctional in the microcosm of Manhattan Transfer. It appears that human relationships are just as disposable, or freely replacable with one another, as if they were standardized pieces of machinery. While the automobile is not a central symbol for Dos Passos as it is in Fitzgerald's work, its significance in the novel cannot be overlooked. Instead of individual cars, Dos Passos frequently uses big-city traffic as a background to the story of Manhattan Transfer. the emphasis is thus put on the facelessness and impersonality of urban existence, since even the singularity of the vehicles is dissolved in the mass of automobiles comprising the traffic, let alone the individuality of the passengers in those vehicles. It is interesting to note in the following examples how Dos Passos recreates the urban atmosphere by using repetition as a device to underscore the notion communicated and to suggest monotony also on a linguistic level. "Behind them automobiles slithered with a constant hissing scuttle in two streams along the roadway " is repeated on the next page as "[b]ehind them limousines, roadsters, touringcars, sedans, slithered along the roadway with snaky glint of lights running in two smooth continuous streams " (163-64; emphases added). In a similar example, also involving automobiles, we see through the eyes of Ed Thatcher sitting at his window "looking out over the endless stream of automobiles that whirred in either direction past the 54
