1.Dreiser sister Carrie 2

Sister Carrie
Sister Carrie, published in 1900, is one of the best-known story of American Dream, tracing the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G. W. Hurstwood.
An American Tragedy (1925) was based on the Chester Gillette and Grace Brown murder case that had taken place in 1906. Dreiser's works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar, cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.
Sister Carrie; An American Tragedy; Gennie, a Girl of the Street
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
an American novelist, outstanding representative of naturalism, depicting real-life subjects in a harsh light
美国文学
Sister Carrie the plot: the rich Carrie Meeber and the fall of George Hurstwood, who are the victims of forces beyond their control. Carrie, a pretty, poor country girl, comes to Chicago for a better life. She first stays with her sister---looking for a job. A traveling man, Drouet, takes her home as his mistress. Through Drouet, she meets Hurstwood, manager of a bar. He deserts his comfortable home and tricks her to elope with him first to Canada and then to New York after he has robbed his employer's safe. Tracked down and forced to surrender the money, Hurstwood begins to disintegrate. Carrie goes out to find work on the stage and steadily rises to fame. She leaves Hurstwood, who sinks lower and lower until he commits suicide. Carrie succeeds, yet she is not happy. what problems are reflected in the novel?
1. Works
Trilogy of Desire Sister Carrie 1900 Jennie Gerhardt 1911 An American Tragedy 1925 The Financier 1912 The Titan 1914 The Stoic (posthumously) The Genius 1915 Dreiser Looks at Russia 1928 autobiographically 美国文学
美国文学
• Sister Carrie, 1900, • Theodore Dreiser based his first novel on the life of his sister Emma. • In 1883 she ran away to Toronto, Canada with a married man who had stolen money from his employer. • The book was initially rejected on the grounds that is was "immoral".
Carrie Meeber, penniless and full of the illusion of ignorance and youth, leaves her rural home to seek work in Chicago. On the train, she becomes acquainted with Charles Drouet, a salesman. In Chicago, she lives with her sister, and work for a time in a shoe factory.
美国文学
Naturalism(自然主义) is a new and harsher realism at the end of the 19th c. It was influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution “the survival of the fittest”. It emphasizes that people’s life is controlled by heredity and the environment, that the destiny of humanity is misery in life. It presents characters of low social and economic classes who are dominated by their environment and heredity. Its writing is to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. There are pessimistic and deterministic ideas Representative writers include London, Dreiser, Norris, Stephen Crane. It exerts a powerful influence on modern 美国文学 writers.
the text: questions about the text: 1. what kind of person is the girl in pa.1? How about her feeling? 2. What does she seek for most in her life (p.39, pa. 4)? 3. What kind of person is the traveling salesman? what do you think of him? (p.41,pa.2) 4. (p.42 倒数第18行）“He reached down in his hip pocket” What does this paragragh reflect? THE VIDEO;V
The materialism is also through Hurstwood, a man with a respectable life and money, who still wants more and for that reason commits a crime. The city in itself is also a place of materialism, it is a place that offers all kinds of amusements, pleasures and things to buy, but to participate in what the city has to offer one has to have money.
美国文学
The theme in Sister Carrie is materialism. The theme is primarily personified through Carrie with her desire for a fine home, clothes and everything else money can buy.
美Hale Waihona Puke Baidu文学
questions to think: 1. How can a girl without much education survive in a big city? 2.Is it understandable for her to be supported by a married man? 3.Facing a young beautiful girl, what should be a successful middle-aged man's first choice? His family or the attraction of the girl? 4.Is it moral for him to abondon his family and live with the girl? Can they live happily? 5. Do you think that one's heredity and living background decide his life? why?
美国文学
Dreiser's writing characteristics: 1. Man as the victim of his environment and his inherited attributes. Hurstwood: victim of his physical desire rather than sensibility. 2. Sufferings of people in the city: unemployment, starvation, struggle,… 3.Corruption and hypocrisy of the upper class 4. Determinism and pessimism 5.Forceful style: His tone is always serious, not satirical, not comical 6.His characters are mixture of good and bad, but he seldom passes judgment on them. 美国文学
美国文学
Theodore Dreiser
born in 1871. poverty while a child; fifteen, leave home in search of work. to Chicago, minor jobs. After a year at Indiana University, he returned to Chicago, a reporter on the Chicago Globe. He also worked for newspapers in St. Louis and Pittsburg before he arrived 美国文学 in New York in 1894.