嘉莉妹妹中的自然主义
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The Analysis of Naturalism in Sister Carrie
Abstract:Sister Carrie is one of the classics of naturalism. It was the first successful novel of American naturalistic writer Theodore Dreiser. This paper explains the meaning of naturalism, analyzes the naturalism writing style in Sister Carrie. It includes two major aspects: naturalism writing style in environmental determinism and biological evolutionism.
Keyword: Dreiser, Sister Carrie, naturalism, environmental determinism, biological evolutionism Sister Carrie is the first novel of American naturalistic writer Theodore Dreiser in the 20th century. The novel portrayed images of Carrie and Drouet and so on. The novel fully embodied Dreiser's naturalism morality and life view.
一.Naturalism
Naturalism was originally a concept of classical philosophy. It was used to point out all forms of materialism, hedonism and secularism. In the early nineteenth century, with the rapid development of natural science and naturalism's connections to it, naturalism lost some derogatory senses and obtained a new kind of respect. Apart from applying in philosophy and science, naturalism was also applied in fine arts and then was introduced into field of literature. It was representative by Flaubert, Turner and Zola.
Art critics Turner thought moral science was like natural science. It should be study in a similar way. We should treat all schools of literature equally and be objective to them. Following after Turner, Zola became the summarize and advocator of naturalism theory. Zola thought, the previous realistic works did not fully fit the demand of modern art and she made up her mind to use new theory to tamp it. Respecting the fact and literature was the base of this theory. Zola boiled the characteristic of naturalistic novel down to a point. That was valuing life correctly and getting rid of all elements of novelized character.
Naturalist literature originated in France during the 1960s and then flourished. In 1990s, the trend of naturalist spread to American literature. Compared with European countries, naturalism's development in America was more closely connected with its social and economic reform. Naturalism had aroused widespread attention in America.
Naturalistic works' writing feature consists in a richness of detail, like real-time objective description. Dreiser used these techniques to become a successful representative naturalistic writer. Naturalistic writers thought human traits was determined by inheritance and their behavior were governed by social and economic conditions. Dreiser's naturalism showed mainly that his protagonist was entirely governed by environment, inheritance and physiology, especially chemistry that involuntarily sinking to the abyss of evil in instinctive efforts. Therefore, men can not be responsible for their own mistakes or failures. Sympathetically disposing towards losers was one major feature in Dreiser's naturalism.
二.Naturalistic writing style in Sister Carrie
Sister Carrie was written at a time when Darwinism prevailed. Many themes of the novel, like struggle, survival and desire, all came directly out of Darwinism's evolutionary perspective. In the meantime,Sister Carrie also was written in American naturalism mature stage--the end of 19th century. American naturalism was influenced by French naturalism. They emphasized human traits was determined inheritance and human behavior was governed by social and economic conditions. Dreiser fully revealed the naturalism style in Sister Carrie. He perfectly revealed the different mentality that different people had and different fate they had. And he explored the impacts of desire and environment on individual fate. These all were filled with ultra morals and survival of the fittest. Dreiser's life was full of ups and downs. So he had a chance to observe the every aspect