2.2 The Affiliation with Men 7

2.3 The Adoration of Material Possessions 8

3. The Struggle and Conflicts of Carrie in Her Experiences in Chicago and New York 10

3.1 The Struggle for Survival in the City 10

3.2 The Feverish Pursuit of Fame and Wealth 10

3.3 The Combat of Carrie’s Desire and Her Conscience 11

4. The Growth of Carrie in Her Struggling 13

4.1 The Ascent of Social Status to a Successful Actress 13

4.2 Becoming Self-reliant and Economically Independent 13

4.3 The Consciousness of Seeking Spiritual Fulfilment 14

5. Conclusion 16

References 17

1. Introduction

1.1 Background Information

Theodore Dreiser is one of the most prominent writers in the history of American literature, who pioneers the naturalist school. He is recognized as a profound and prescient critic of debased American values and as a powerful novelist. As the forerunner of the modern American novel, Theodore Dreiser breaks the cowardly and courteous tradition of the Victoria period and plays an important role in introducing a new Realism into American fiction. His works are close to people’s life, honest, bold and full of passion. Sinclair Lewis, an American novelist, the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, tells the Swedish Academy that “Dreiser more than any other man, marching alone, usually unappreciated, often hated, has cleared the trail from Victorian and Howellsian timidity and gentility in American fiction to honesty and boldness and passion of life. Without his pioneering, I doubt if any of us could, unless we liked to be sent to jail, seek to express life and beauty and terror”. He makes a high comment on Dreiser by saying that Dreiser provides American literature’s first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman. Lewis conveys a wide spread feeling in the American Literature community that Dreiser is the one who should have won the prize. In China, there are many critics who think highly of Dreiser as well. The Chinese scholar Wu Weiren noted “Indeed, though turn-of-the-century readers found Dreiser’s point of view crude and immoral, his influence on the fiction of the first quarter of the century is perhaps greater than any other writer’s” (2002:109). In 1930, Theodore was nominated to the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Theodore Dreiser is a productive writer. Sister Carrie, the work this thesis is going to discuss, is Theodore Dreiser’s first novel in his literary career, published on November 8, 1900. Nigger Jeff and ButcherRogaum’s Daughter are written in the early period as well. In 1911, he resigns to write Jennie Gerhardt, followed by the succession of “Trilogy of Desire,” The Financier (1912),  The Titan (1941) and The Stoic (1947). In these works, Dreiser shifts his writing focus from the pathos of the helpless to the power of those unusual inpiduals who assume dominant roles in society. The Genius debuted in 1915 and An American Tragedy published in 1925 are also very successful and distinguished masterpieces of Dreiser.  

Theodore Dreiser’s novels often feature main characters who succeed at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. In his novels, Dreiser is apt to deal with the new social problems that have come into being in a rapidly industrialising America. His heroes and heroines, his settings, his frank discussion, cerebration and humanisation of sex, and his clear dissection of the mechanistic brutality of American society are so different and new that they have the reading public reared on the genteel romances and adventure narratives.

Sister Carrie, Dreiser’s first novel, has been called the “greatest of all American urban novels (Miller, 2003:263).” It tells a story of an eighteen-year-old country girl who, seduced by the promise of the big city — its vitality and reckless possibility, flees from her home in a small town for Chicago to pursue her own American Dream. Under the pressure of making a living in Chicago and driven by her desires for material life, she becomes the mistress of a traveling salesman and then of a saloon manager who lures Carrie to elope with him. Then because of her courage and ceaseless struggle, Carrie fulfils her dream and grows into a famous Broadway star.