小說《拓荒者》描寫了美國獨立革命后紐約州小鎮在四十年間的發展歷程,作者賦予城鎮空間以政治含義,用紐約州地方區域的繁榮景象折射美國推翻英國苛政、建立共和政體后所取得的成就,贊頌了開拓者在邊疆小鎮所進行的領土實踐。本文從國家領土空間生產視角解讀《拓荒者》,結合小說創作歷史背景考察作者獨特的邊疆城鎮空間敘述特點,分析美國在簽署《巴黎條約》之后幾十年間國家領域主體性建構過程的內在機理,試圖揭示美國建國后密西西比河以東邊疆領土的開發動因、土地政策運作方式和結果。

The novel The Pioneers depicts the development of a town in New York in the four decades after the American Revolution. The writer endows the town space with political meanings. And he uses the prosperity of the New York area to reflect the achievements of the republican government of the United States after its overthrow of the British oppression,extolling the territory practice of the pioneers in the frontier town. This article analyses the novel The Pioneers from the perspective of the production of the national territory,observing the features of the writer’s unique local narrative about the frontier cities and towns in the historical context. It probes into the implicit mechanism of how the national sovereignty was established in the frontier in the decades after the signing of the Paris Treaty,and endeavors to discover the causes,the policy operation methods and the result of the development of the American frontier in the area to the east of Mississippi after the American Revolution.