被唐納德．派樂譽為「史詩小說」的法蘭克．諾瑞斯大章魚一書， 持續受 到文評家的關注，不僅是因其中關於大農場經營者與鐵路公司之間利益衝突的描述，更也因其中主要角色的信念轉換，以及小說末了的氛圍中，作者明顯試圖以寬容、樂觀的方向作為該小說最終的收尾。而本研究--旨在嘗試--主要用馬丁．海德格的四象觀，也就是天、地、神祇、凡人的觀點，來解讀諾瑞斯的這本鉅著。事實上，在海德格晚期，他在他的解釋現象學中，發展出四象的概念。海德格認為，四象世界是完美世界，是上帝的一項恩典。然而，這般的世界，卻由於人類沒有做好他作為四象之一的角色，而遭到破壞。關於此，海德格相信--解釋學--在神話的意義上來說，正可提供自身，作為一種解釋的方法。如海德格在通往語 言的道路一書中所強調，解釋學本身含藏著來自上帝或存在的「消息」或「信息」。 在本研究中，我將著力在分析人類如何忽略自然及其軌則，人類如何驕傲地、貪婪地巧取豪奪這世界的資源，以及人類如何可為這世界及其自身找尋一條出路，扮演好人類的角色，以作為此世界的保護者而非粗暴的破壞者。

Asserted as an “epic novel” by Donald Pizer, Frank Norris’s The Octopus keeps absorbing critics’ attention for its portrayal of the conflicts between the ranchers and the railroad, the conversion of faith happening to the main characters, and the ending atmosphere of the novel, which obviously attempts to wind up in a benign and opti-mistic direction. This study is an effort to read Norris’s masterpiece mainly through Martin Heidegger’s viewpoints of the fourfold,--that of the Sky and the Earth, the Di-vinities and the Mortals. The fact is that Heidegger, in his later years, develops in his hermeneutical phenomenology the concept of the fourfold. For Heidegger, the world of the fourfold is a world of Being, a healthy one given from God. However, this world has been spoiled since man failed to fulfill his role as a sound mortal. Concern-ing this, Heidegger believes that hermeneutics, in a mythological sense, offers itself as a means for interpretation because it, as Heidegger emphasizes in On the Way to Lan-guage, bears in itself the “tidings,” or, the “message” from Being, or God (29). In this study, I shall focus on analyzing how man ignores nature and its law, how the earth is exploited on account of man’s pride and avarice, and how man can possibly find a way out for the world as well as for himself, by taking up his role again as a member of the fourfold--to be the world’s preserver, rather than its brutal demolisher.