Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)作品有：代表作：An American Tragedy.
Sister Carrie. (嘉莉妹妹). Nigger Jeff. Old Rogaum and His Theresa. Jennie Gerhardt. Trilogy of Desire(欲望三部曲):1. The Financier. 2. The Titan.3. The Stoic. The Genius. Dreiser Looks at Russia.
Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of America‘s literary naturalists. (美国著名的自然主义作家)
With every disadvantage piled upon him, Dreiser, by his strong will and his dogged persistence, eventually burst out and became one of the important American writers.
Dreiser is a prolific writer and many of his works are familiar to us Chinese readers. (是个多产作家。

) . Among them, Sister Carrie is the best known, tracing the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G.W. Hurstwood.
The Genius, a classic story of a ―misunderstood artist‖, was once condemned for ―obscenity and blasphemy. (《天才》讲的是一个“被误解的艺术家”的故事，这部小说因其“淫秽和对神的不敬”而遭到谴责。

)‖
In 1925，Dreiser‘s greatest work An American Tragedy appeared.
With the publication of Sister Carrie, Dreiser was launching himself upon a long career that would ultimately make him one of the most significant American writers of the school later known as literary naturalism. As a genre, (写作手法) naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances.
Asked, during his middle years, about what he thought earthly existence was, Dreiser described it as ―a welter of inscrutable forces,‖ in which was trapped each individual human being. In his words, man is a ―victim of forces over which he has no control.‖ To him, life is ―so sad, so strange, so mysterious and so inexplicable.‖(在中年的时候，德莱塞在回答世俗生活是什么时说，它是“一团高深莫测的各种力量的纠缠，”个人深陷其中，不能自拔。

用他的话来说，人类是“各种力量交织在一起的受害者，这些力量人类是无法控制的。

”他认为，生活是“十分悲惨，陌生、神秘、不可解释。

”)
The effect of Darwinist idea of ―survival of the fittest‖ was shattering. It is not surprising to find in Dreiser‘s fiction a world of jungle, where ―kill or to be killed‖ was the law.
In Sister Carrie Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards.
An American Tragedy proves to be his greatest work and by entitling this book with such a name, Dreiser intended to tell us that it is the social pressure that makes Clyde‘s downfall inevitable. Clyde‘s tragedy is a tragedy that depends upon the American social system which
encouraged people to pursue the ―dream of success‖ at all costs.
From the first novel Sister Carrie on, Dreiser set himself to project the American values for what he had found them to be –materialistic to the core. Living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires. One of the desires is for money which was a motivating purpose of life in the United States in the late 19th century. Sex is another human desire that Dreiser explored to considerable lengths in his novels to reveal the dark side of human nature.
Dreiser‘s style has been a controversial aspect of his work from the beginning. For lack of concision, his writings appear more inclusive and less selective, and the readers are sometimes burdened with massive detailed descriptions of characters and events. Though the time sequence is clear and the plot straightforward, he has been always accused of being awkward in sentence structure, inept and occasionally flatly wrong in word selection and meaning, and mixed and disorganized in voice and tone. For him language is a means of communication rather than an art form. However, Dreiser‘s contribution to the American literary history cannot be ignored. He broke away from the genteel tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way. There is no comment, no judgment but facts of life in the stories. His style is not polished but very serious and well calculated to achieve the thematic ends he sought.
《嘉莉妹妹》的主要内容及人物思想：
―Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room. When the odor reached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for the bed.
‗What‘s the use?‘ he said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.‖
Questions:
The above is quoted from Theodore Dreiser‘s Sister Carrie. Briefly tell the situation that leads to the suicide and interpret Hurstwood‘s final words—―what‘s the use?‖
Answer:
A.Sister Carrie has made a great success. As her fame arises, she deserts her former
lover Hurstwood. In a cold winter Hurstwood makes a last attempt to seek help from Carrie, but failed. So in desperation, he decides to kill himself by turning on the gas.
B.By making that comment, Hurstwood seems to have realized that it is useless to
continue to fight against fate. His fate is not controlled by his own efforts but by some social forces too strong for him to resist, so he decides to give up.
论述题
―Sister Carrie‖ is the greatest literary work by Theodore Dreiser. Discuss Carrie Meeber, the protagonist of the novel.
Answer:
1.Social background: The impact of Darwin‘s evolutionary theory on the American
thought and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to yet another school of realism: American naturalism.
2.Sister Carrie best embodies Dreiser‘s naturalistic belief that while men are
controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct and chance, a few unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate and try to find meaning and purpose for their existence. Carrie, as one of such, senses that she is merely a cipher in an nearing world yet seeks to grasp the mysteries of life and there—by satisfies her desire for social status and material comfort.。