美国文学 重要作家评价和作品分析

Sister Carrie 1. The themes1) the social Darwinism:the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society2) American Dream:Each of Dreiser’s characters in Sister Carrie search for their own “American Dreams”2. The character analysis of CarrieShe follows the right direction to a pursuit of the American dream.She desires for a better life direct to the successful goal.But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely.( In essence, she is a product of thesociety.Sister Carrie best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct and chance. )To Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh. She is alone and helpless.She moves along like a mechanism driven by desire.She catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence,opportunities .She makes use of first Droust, and then of Hurstwood.She has no control, no freedom of will.Then there is the tragedy of Hurstwood. Here Spenser’s influence is seen at its most powerful.3. The character analysis of HurstwoodHe is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest:He is still conventional.\He can not throw away the social morals.\He is not fitted to live in New York. In this novel, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards. Hurstwood can not help himself in his relationship with Sister Carrie.He hovers between being a man and a beast in his behavior.Carl Sandburg Evaluation评价He played a significant role in the development in American poetry that took place during the first two decades of the 20th century.His emphasis on the tradition of American experience associate him with Hart Crane. His free verse, reflecting industrial America, gained wide popularity during the Depression years, although his use of everyday language at first shocked readers.The People, Yes:probably Sandburg’s most popular single book.From his very first volumes Sandburg was interested in the speech of Midwesterners, spoken by the working class of the industrial cities. his interest in folk speech and folk expression became a clear feature of his poetry. It also gave evidence of the author’s epigrammatic skill and felicitous phrasingChicago:The poem presents a striking and impressive description of the vigor and vitality of Chicago primarily by means of personification, images and metaphor.By using metaphor, the vigor of Chicago is highlighted.1.In the first 5 lines, Chicago is compared to those whom are powerful and vigorous. “hog butcher”“tool maker”“stacker of wheat”“Players with railroads”“the National Freight Handler”“the Big Shoulders”2.In the next 13 lines, the poet agrees that Chicago is wicked, crooked and brutal in a straightforward way by assuming a talk between the poet and the personified city, but he goes on to develop the theme of the poem by stating that Chicago is “alive and coarse and strong and cunning”.3.Then in the last 21 lines, the poet delineates th e images of “a tall bold slugger”, “a dog lapping for actions” and “a savage pitted against the wilderness”.They are all incarnations of power, strength, vitality and action. So, the use of these images further emphasizes the vigor of Chicago. Moreover, the varied syntactic pattern and changeable rhythm also reveal the mobility, energy, and vigor of Chicago. Fog:among the few exceptions that mark Sandburg’s break from free verse poetry. an innocent expression of finding beauty in an ordinary world“The Fog” is written in verse form, and although short, is a simple expression of an ordinary phenomenon in weather, fog. Quiet\\free\\mysteriousTheme 1: City mystery and desolationIn the 20th century, with the development of industrial revolution, people feel lonely and depressed in the materialistic world.Poem symbolizes the rapid changes in modern society, the mystery in big cities as well as the desolation in western society. Theme 2 :LifeThe fog represents the problems that one can have sometimes in their life.Perhaps the problem can creep up on you silently like a cat, linger in your life and on your mind and then move on when it feels like it. You can't control it, just like the weather.Theme 3 :Man and natureThe poet personifies the fog to accentuate the feeling of threat. The fact that the fog sits “looking over the harbor and city” is quite frightening as it is emphasizing man’s weakness to the elements of nature.Man has no control over the weather. Nature is beautiful but at times can be so cruel.The theme:The poem compares the approach of fog with the entrance of a cat into the room. Fog, like the cat’s entrance, and departure is unpredictable.Often fog can simply dissipate without notice.It is ghost-like in its appearance, one can walk through it, see through it.Fog puts a temporary veil on the horizon, it can be quite beautiful, especially when it rolls in low above the ground, almost like creeping, just like a cat creeps silently into a room.Sandburg celebrates the simplicity of fog, an everyday occurrence, and draws us closer to nature and appreciating our environment.And, noticing and appreciating the simple things in life, such as fog.The narrator is comparing the movement of the fog to the silent, spry footsteps of a cat.Fog often arrives quickly, yet completely, as it covers a city or a harbor.。