《嘉莉妹妹》反映的社会现实---毕业论文.doc

【标题】嘉莉妹妹反映的社会现实 【作者】舒 正 莉 【关键词】社会现实；自然主义；物质主义；大都市 【指导老师】李 雷 【专业】英语 【正文】. IntroductionA. Introduction to the AuthorTheodore Dreiser, an American writer, is the most outstanding representative of naturalism, whose novels depict the real life. He brings the realistic novel to a new starting point with Sister Carrie. Dreiser also gains his reputation as the pioneer at the turn of 20th century, and firmly establishes his position in literary world. Theodore Dreiser is considered as the first person that breaks up with the American literature tradition. Since his Sister Carrie, the naturalism began to dominate the literary scene, and the optimistic American literature becomes gloomy. In this novel, his stinging criticism of the social reality, the materialism, is the most remarkable feature.As an American classic, Sister Carrie draws much attention from the critics. For example, Chang Yaoxin says:“it is not indented as a piece of literary craftsmanship, but as a picture of conditions done as simple and effectively as the English language will permit”.1There is no doubt that Dreiser is a great naturalist in America, and his first novel Sister Carrie is also a masterpiece standing for naturalism. We can simply find a sub theme about naturalism; hence we will try to understand this works from the naturalistic view.B. Introduction to the NovelIn August of 1889, Carrie Meeber leaves her small town to find a job in the city of Chicago. It is the first time for this country girl to see a big city like Chicago. However, Carrie has no skills to offer for an employment. The jobs that Carrie can possibly get are those in the factories, ill paid, with poor working conditions and long working hours. Even worse, Carrie gets sick and loses her job.On the train to Chicago, Carrie meets with a salesman, Charlie H. Drouet. She is impressed by the way he talks and dresses. When they meet again, Drouet“lends” Carrie money to buy nice winter clothes, gives her fine meals, takes her to the theater, and shows her the sights of Chicago. Unable to find another job, Carries is forced to be his mistress, but she is satisfied with her new apartment, her new clothe, and enjoys her new life.When Drouet invites his friend, Hurstwood, to dinner, she recognizes him a man who is much richer than Drouet. Carrie loves Hurstwood and agrees to leave with him. Even discovering that Hurstwood is married, Carrie still decides to leave Drouet and tries to find an acting job. Once again, Carrie cannot find a job. Hurstwood forces her into leaving with him. Carrie thinks they are married in Canada and eventually they move to New York. Hurstwood is not able to find or keep a job, whereas Carrie gets one. As her theater career rises and her social status improves, Hurstwood becomes completely dependent on Carrie. With the ability to support herself, Carrie leaves Hurstwood, and becomes a hot star who gets respectable position and handsome income, while Hurstwood becomes a street person and ends up killing himself.This novel has given rise to many literary analysis from different angles. For instance, Deirdre Seidel, emphasizes the economic pressure on the character in the novel; John Bender, paid more attention to the economic development at that time; Chang Yaoxin considered this novel as the first modern American novel. After the massive reading, the present author managed to handle all the information to form his own view. It is not merely about the book. This dissertation will try to find out the social realities hiding behind Carries story and explore how people changed under this social circumstance.We will try to find the social realities hidden behind this novel in that period, and also how these social realities change peoples behaviors. Materialism, including the desire for money, is the most important theme in Sister Carrie. Materialism is the most important social reality embodied by Sister Carrie. The materialism is shown through Carries character，as well as through Hurstwood and all the others, and furthermore the city itself is also a place of materialism. It is a place that offers all kinds of pleasure and things to buy. It is a place having seduced all the people，and a place where rising and falling seem to have no reasons.The great influence of materialism is shown by the city and people who lived in the city. Firstly we will talk about the people who are enslaved by the materialism and the overflowing of material desire conducted by the concept of cinsumption, and how the people were seduced by their material desire. Secondly we will expound on the rising of the metropolitans in which people shaped by their desire, and the big city symbolized the environment which is very important in naturalists eyes.The Rise of Material DesireA. The Overflowing of Material DesireFrom the founding of the U.S. through the early nineteenth century, the economy has been primarily agricultural, with the individual household the center of production. Individual families are destroyed. The transition from family-centered economy to an industrial order is characterized by managerial capitalism, and it depending on the development of factories throughout the nineteenth century.As capitalism blooms, consumers begin to see money as the most important thing. While Sister Carrie registers life set by the marketplace, one of the most important changes the novel illustrates is the transformation of the people driven by consumption. We can see in the capitalist society“consumption or keeping money and goods moving is the ultimate destination of all the people.”2 All the people are potential buyers, and capitalism keeps their desire unsatisfied. The people are eager to spend money，like Carrie who enters a department store for a job, but leaves with an unsatisfied desire to own things. She longs for the luxury and wealth. In carriers eyes the world is a place defined by desire. We can observe the psychological movement of the consumer in its purest form when Carrie wanders the Chicago department stores, which Dreiser calls“vast retail combinations that form an interesting chapter in the commercial history of our nation”.3 As she examines the attractive goods available for sale, Carrie“could not help feeling the claim of each trinket and valuable upon her personally. The dainty slippers and stockings, the delicately frilled skirts and petticoats, all touched her with individual desire”. 4In Dreisers novel, desire is the essence of a person. As a typical naturalist, Dreiser believes Darwinism which claims that man is merely an animal driven by greed and desire in struggle for existence. As he describes:“In Carrie-as in how many of our worldlings do they not?-instinct and reason, desire and understanding, were at war for the mastery. She followed whither her craving led. She was as yet more drawn than she drew.”5In Dreisers eyes, Chicago is more like a piece of jungle than a city. People who live in Chicago are controlled by some kind of inscrutable force, the mighty force of nature. So Carries behaviors and the never fulfilled material desire she possessed, are as indisputable as an animals instinct:Man as the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied,” and“the demand for quantity once satisfied, he seeks quality. The very desires that he has in common with the beast become extended, refined, exalted. It is not merely hunger, but taste that seeks gratification in food; in clothes he seeks not merely comfort, but adornment; the rude shelter becomes a house.6At the same time, people like Carrie are blessed by the nature.“On the tiger no responsibility rests. We see him aligned by nature with the forces of life-he is born into their keeping and without thought he is protected.”7 Sometimes we simply call this the jungle rule, in the world of jungle where killing and to be killed is the law of“Survival the fittest”. In some sense, Carrie, the person with unsatisfied desire, is the chosen one in capitalist society. In this regard, the controversial happy ending of the immoral woman Carrie is reasonable.B. The Waning of HumanityThe turning of America from an agricultural economy to an industrial one is characterized by the development of factories. Factories demands centralized labor, so large groups of unrelated people leave their home and work under the same roof. With this shift, work accordingly moves outside home, and as that happens, the meaning of the family and the home also is changed. Dreiser grounds Sister Carrie in this factory-based capitalist economy, highlighting its effects on individuals and families.The Individual People Enslaved by Material Desire: The number of the workers is never as large as this, so the differences between them become vague. Human life sets pace with economic movement, and the details of people, virtues, personality, habits, become immaterial. The famous characters in America literature, Hawthornes Hooper, Melvilles Ishmael, who always focus on their inner world, disappear. Instead, Carrie, Hurstwood suddenly show on the stage. Most of the characters in the novel possess the same feature that we can hardly see anything personal from them. Except material desire, they control their emotion so well that we believe they barely have them. In Dreisers novel, man is simply labeled by his economic conditions, for instance his job, his house, and his clothes. As Dreiser firstly describes his Caroline Meeber not by her opinions or actions, but by what she owns:“a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel.and a small yellow snap purse”8. Reviewing the rise of Carrie, we may find that morality, tradition, dignity, are totally worthless in front of money. In Sister Carrie, money is a main objective at the beginning of many relationships. Carries fascination in Drouet or Hurstwood is caused by his money.“Handing her the money gives him the opportunity to touch her hand, the first step of physical intimacy with her”. 9 We can see in that society wealth is associated with individual merit and money is associated with personality.The Interpersonal Relationship Enslaved by Material Desire: The obsessing of wealth andmoney makes the establishment of a new relationship in which people are totally related by material, even between family members. As Dreiser says the family ran along by force of habit, by force of conventional opinion.We still remember when Carrie firstly arrives at her sisters house; Dreiser launches his cruel narration for Hanson, Carries brother in law.“It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and pay her board. He was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already paid a number of monthly installments on two lots far out on the West Side. His ambition was some day to build a house on them.” 10 In Hansons eye Carrie is just a tenant for him, or just a paycheck. The most important thing is his ambitions, his house, and his wealth. He is a character that could easily be forgotten, unimportant, seldom talking, caring about nothing except his job and income. In his life, things are never changed. He leaves early to work and goes back home on time. Readers could easily forget him as soon as they put down the novel. Hanson is as ordinary as hundreds and thousands people, he is just like a stranger, who passes you quickly everyday. However Dreiser wants this character to be obscure. As a plot elaborately cooked up by author, Dreiser indicates us that there are hundreds of Hanson around, who have become a part of the environment, and the main part of the capitalist society. So their conduct is irreproachable.Hanson symbolizes a kind of social environment. Human relations in society are totally dominated by marital. Carries sister, Minnie, acts in the same way. Minnie is thinking of the resource which Carries board will add. It will pay the rent and will make the subject of expenditure a little less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie is going to think of running around in the beginning there will be a hitch somewhere. Unless Carrie submittes to a solemn round of industry and see the need of hard work without longing for play, how is her coming to the city to profit them.Dreiser never means to blame them. Under that circumstance, to survive is their ultimate goal, so Dreiser provides an explanation for them, as“These thoughts were not those of a cold, hard nature at all They were the serious reflections of a mind which invariably adjusted itself, without much complaining, to such surroundings as its industry could make for it.”11Hurstwoods family life is also a tragedy. As Dreiser puts, such an atmosphere couldhardly come under the category of home life. It ran along by force of habit, by force ofconventional opinion.For instance, his son, Young Hurstwood is in his twentieth year, and is already connected in a promising capacity with a large real estate firm. He contributes nothing for the domestic expenses of the family, but is thought to be saving his money to invest in real estate. He has some ability, considerable vanity, and hates infringe upon his duties, whatever they are. He come in and goes out, pursuing his own plans and fancies, addressing a few words to his mother occasionally, relating some little incident to his father, but for the most part confining himself to those generalities with which most conversation concerns itself. He is not laying bare his desires for any one to see. He does not find any one in the house who particularly cares to see.For Hurstwood, the only reason for his maintaining this family is described like this,“As it was, he received and gave, irritated sometimes by the little displays of selfish indifference, pleased at times by some show of finery which supposedly made for dignity and social distinction.” 12 He does not really care any of his family members. They are strangers for him. He can not complicate his home life, because it may affect his relations with his employers. They want no scandals. A man, to hold his position, must have a dignified manner, a clean record, a respectable home anchorage.C. The Falling of the Moral StandardsSister Carrie shocks the public when it is publish. In fact, it is so controversial that it almost misses being printed at all. Dreiser makes no moral judgments on his characters. He writes about infidelity and prostitution as natural occurrences in the course of human relationships. Dreiser seems not to encourage readers to view Carrie as immorally, instead, he draws attention to the obsolescence of traditional moral standards. The ending of the novel is especially significant in this regard, for Dreiser breaks up with the long-standing literary tradition that“fallen women” must be fully punished by death. Carrie, to the contrary, may be unfulfilled or lonely at the end of the novel, but she is alive and successful in the eyes of the world.The Darwinism concepts like“the survival of the fittest” and“the human beast” have become the popular catchwords and standards of moral reference in an amoral world. New ideas about man and mans place in the universe have begun to take root in American. Living in a cold and godless world, man was no longer free in any sense. Life has become a struggle for survival. We can see in Sister Carrie, all Dreisers characters, Carrie, Drouet, Hurstwood, Mr. Hanson and Mrs. Hanson act almost the same, who simply pursue the materials and profits and make no secret of the falling of the moral standards, and Capitalism makes the sweeping change in social value.Morality has become something we should not mention until afternoon tea. For all of us, morality is so remote that we barely think of it in our daily life. People are disqualified to talk about morality until he has had enough money.“In the essence of these facts lie the first principles of morals.” 13 Materialism has occupied the dominant position; the whole world has been obsessed with wealth, while Emerson and Thoreaus self-reliance has been abandoned. People has begun to think what the essence of life really is, desire or wealth. They put the“principles of morals” into textbook; they have a tacit understanding that the marital relationship comes first. The Influence of MetropolitanAs a naturalist, Dreiser emphasizes heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters. In his novel we can easily find the description of environment, the metropolitan and the people who are also a part of the city as main components of environment in this novel.The city and people who live in the city consist of the environment in the novel. They symbolize the power of attraction the city, can convey in passers by. About raining days, pedestrians with umbrellas make the streets look like a sea of round black cloth roofs, twisting, bobbing, and moving. The people living in the city are the ones that make the city and therefore their presence is important. What would New York be if Carrie and Hurstwood were the only ones living there, or if there were no people there at all? It would be a dead city, a place where no one would like to go.A. The Dual Standard in the CityThe city life is also presented through Carries and Hurstwoods eyes. The metropolis that attracts one person could also exclude others, like what Dreiser called a“walled city”. Thus New York, which“interested Carrie exceedingly”, has a negative effect on George Hurstwood. For Carrie, who gives the positive view of the city, the city is a place full of possibilities. It is a whirl of pleasure and delight. As the other characters in the novel Carrie feels material desires that she cannot resist. The city is therefore a place that requires money, preferably