In this novel, Theodore Dreiser presents a detailed and realistic portrayal of American cultural history and American life. He broke the traditional standards which were in accordance with the traditional values and moral standard in the male-dominant society. At the beginning of its advent, Sister Carrie aroused a thousand ripples in American critics. There were mixed views towards this novel. H.L.Mencken, representative of the critics who held the positive attitude, noted that Dreiser’s raw, honest portrayal of Carrie’s life should be seen as a courageous attempt to give the reader a realistic view of the life of women in the nineteenth century (Henningfeld, 2000). Oppositely, another school of critics, represented by The Life and The Business Newspaper, argued that it ignored the ethical constraints and preached moral decay. These reviewers criticised the novel with words such as “gloomy,” “over-realistic,” or “unhealthful.” Although at its first publication, it was under great controversy, Sister Carrie proved to be a classic over time. Sinclair Lewis declared in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1930, that Sister Carrie came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman.

1.2 Literature Review

Since the publication of Sister Carrie, critics have never ceased their study on this novel. There are many books on Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie, one of which is The Distinguished Theodore Dreiser co-authored by Alfred Cajun and Charles Shapiro. This book has a collection of a number of critical articles on Sister Carrie. Another book, The Guide of the Critical Research on Dreiser’s Sister Carrie by Robert Geer, gives a critical analysis of Sister Carrie as well as a brief introduction to the previous studies of this novel. Besides these two books, there are a great number of other relevant literatures. Here is a brief review of previous studies both at home and abroad.