1.2 Theodore Dreiser and The “Genius”

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was born in August 27, 1871 in a German immigrant family in America. Dreiser’s father is a poor weaver with religious beliefs, and he has more than 10 children after marriage. His father treats his children like tyrants and never gives them a little warmth, so that most of his children fall into a miserable life. Dreiser’s mother is a gentle, industrious and frugal woman. However, Dreiser inherits some of the personality factors on both parents, inheriting his mother’s enthusiasm and openness and his father’s assertiveness. Due to his father’s hegemony, Dreiser accepted the traditional school education from time to time between 1889 and 1900. However, the courses that Dreiser has learned could not satisfy Dreiser’s strong curiosity, he is the kind of child who likes to observe, absorb and master new knowledge and new information. On the other hand, school education also makes Dreiser aware of the joy of reading and learning new things, so that he thinks it is necessary for him to study hard to find the meaning of life. He also reads many of the writers’ works, at the same time, Dreiser starts to be mesmerized by love and the indiscretions of his sisters also make a very big impact on his sexuality erotism.

After graduating from high school, he earns his living by brushing bowls, washing clothes and doing ticket clerks and furniture shopkeepers and other work in Chicago. This experience provides a lot of material for his subsequent creation. In 1892, Dreiser started his journalistic career and visited cities such as Chicago and New York to gain extensive access to every corner of the city and report on the lives of all walks of life. In 1902, he became chief editor of women’s magazines and resigned after 1910 and became a professional writer. During this period, he also matured in dealing with the relationship and sexuality of women and later married Sarah.

In 1915, Dreiser published The “Genius”, a semi-autobiographical novel about himself. Dreiser is a prolific writer who publishes short stories, essays, novels, and an autobiography. The most successful of these are Sister Carrie (1900), Jennie Gerhardt (1911), The Financer (1912), The Titan (1914), An American Tragedy (1925) and two books: The Bulwark and The Stoic, which are successive publication. Since his earliest novel Sister Carrie published in 1900, Dreiser was famous in American literature world. In 1930, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature.As a pioneer and representative writer of modern American novels, Dreiser is regarded as one of the first three American modern novelists tied with Hemingway and Faulkner.

As his fifth novel, The “Genius” is generally based on his personal life. Dreiser thinks of the novel closest to his heart in all of his works. Most of Dreiser’s own experience is recorded in The “Genius”, as homelessness, nervous breakdown, the break-up of his first marriage, magazine work, and have an affair with an eighteen-year-old woman. In this novel, there are two main lines running through the full text are the painting of Eugene and his emotional life. At the same time, it can also be interpreted as the contradiction between Eugene’s material enjoyment and artistic pursuit.

Eugene Wilta is the son of a sewing machine agent in a small town. He studies art in Chicago. But driven by the pursuit of material desires, he becomes a businessman, makes a name for himself in New York. Meanwhile, he also continues to develop the nature of his “genius” as a businessman. While material desires are being met, Eugene’s spiritual desires are also growing. In general, there are nine women in his life share the same commonality to attract Eugene. Beginning with Stella and ending with Suzanne. At this point, it can simply sum up Eugene’s fantasy nature and his desire for beauty and women, which are forcing him to pursue wealth, status and reputation. These pursuits are constantly expanding and transforming into powerful desire, leading to his self-degenerate. Studio life in painting brings about Eugene’s nervous collapse, but he recovers his health by doing manual labor. Later, he takes up advertising art, and quickly becomes a director of the United Magazines Corporation at a salary of twenty-five thousand a year. His wife dies after giving birth to a daughter. The end of the story leaves him in search of a guiding plan of life in Christian Science, mysticism, cosmic philosophy and Herbert Spencer, and performing his paternal duties.