完Theodore-Dreiser
An American Tragedy
The novel relates, in great detail, the life of Clyde Griffiths, a boy of weak will and little self-awareness. Hபைடு நூலகம் grows up in great poverty in a family of wandering evangelists福音传道 者, but dreams of wealth and the love of beautiful women.
Life (1871-1945)
son of a German immigrant the ninth of 10 children in poverty spending one year at Indiana University a newspaper reporter in 1892 Sister Carrie in 1900: a depiction of unpunished
2) It is a scathing损伤的portrait of the American success myth gone sour, but it is also a universal story about the stresses of urbanization, modernization, and alienation. Within it roam the romantic and dangerous fantasies of the dispossessed.
A rich uncle employs him in his factory. When his girlfriend Roberta becomes pregnant, she demands that he marry her. Mean while, Clyde has fallen in love with a wealthy society girl who represents success, money, and social acceptance. Clyde carefully plans to drown Roberta on a boat trip, but at the last minute he begins to change his mind; however, she accidentally falls out of the boat. Clyde, a good swimmer, does not save her, and she drowns. As Clyde is brought to justice, Dreiser replays his story in reverse, masterfully using the vantage points of prosecuting and defense attorneys to analyze each step and motive that led the mild mannered Clyde, with a highly religious background and good family connections, to commit murder.
5) Though his visit to the Soviet Union had left him skeptical about communism, the Great Depression (from 1929)caused him to reconsider his opposition. His autobiographical Dawn (1931) is one of the most candid self-revelations by any major writer.
The relevant evaluation:
1) This novel explores the dangers of the American dream and displays crushing authority. Its precise details build up an overwhelming sense of tragic inevitability.
Theodore Dreiser
Major Works
Sister Carrie Jennie Gerhardt An American Tragedy The Genius (autobiographical) The Trilogy of Desire:
Financier, The Titan, The Stoic 《金融家》 《巨人》 《斯多葛》
2) After briefly attending Indiana University for one year (1889-90), he found work as a reporter on several newspapers. Later he moved to New York where he attempted to establish himself as a novelist.
7) Real fame, however, did not come to Dreiser until 1925, when his An American Tragedy had great popular success. The novel, based on an actual murder case and concerned with the efforts of a weak young man to rise from pious poverty into glamorous society, was dramatized and made into a motion picture. The novels of Theodore Dreiser were deeply imbued灌输with an understanding of the brutal injustices of social class, and they rank as magnificent examples of 20th-century American naturalism. Sister Carrie (1900) depicts the downfall of a young woman who moves from small-town America to Chicago and then to New York City. An American Tragedy (1925) shows the downfall of a weak young man who tries to rise from poverty into glamorous society
6). By the time Dreiser's second novel, Jenny Gerhardt, was published in 1911, his work had found influential supporters, including the British novelists H. G. Wells and Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, and he was able to devote himself entirely to literature. Dreiser's writings continued to excite controversy. In The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914), he drew harsh portraits of a type of ruthless businessman. In The “Genius” (1915), he presented a study of the artistic temperament in a mercenary唯利是图的 society. This novel increased his influence among young American writers, who acclaimed him leader of a new school of social realism .
The Genius in 1915 An American Tragedy in1925: great popular success
Fort and Theodore Dreiser at Dreiser’s home in Mt Kisco
Theodore Dreiser Lane- Streets of Illinois Springfield
4) As a socialist, Dreiser was invited to be present at the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow in 1927. After returning to America in early 1928, he wrote several non-fiction books on political issues. This included Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928), Tragic America (1931) and America is Worth Saving (1941). Theodore Dreiser joined the American Communist Party just before he died in 1945.
1) Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1871. The ninth child of German immigrants, he experienced considerable poverty while a child and at the age of fifteen was forced to leave home in search of work.
Theodore Dreiser (西奥多
From the age of fifteen， he earned meager support by doing some odd jobs. In 1889, spent a year studying at Indiana University, but drop out In 1890.
Life Experience
• • • • • •
American dream Change and transformation Choices and consequences Wealth and poverty Identity sex
• Theodore Dreiser is regarded as an outstanding representative of American naturalism.
• With no money, no friend in power, no formal education worthy of mention, no family tradition in letters. With every disadvantages piled upon him, Dreiser, by his strong will and his dogged persistence, eventually burst out and became one of the important American writers.
Theodore Dreiser （西奥多· 德莱塞）
Contents
1st 2ed 3rd 4th
Life Experience His Works His position Selected reading ----Sister Carrie
经典课件Theodore_Dreiser
Main Literary Works
Sister Carrie 1900 《嘉莉妹妹》 嘉莉妹妹》 Jennie Gerhardt 1911 《珍妮姑娘》 珍妮姑娘》 Financial 1912 《金融家》 金融家》 The Titan 1914 《巨人》 巨人》 The “Genius” 1915 《天才 》 An American Tragedy 1925 《美国悲剧》 美国悲剧》 The Stoic 1947 《斯多葛》 斯多葛》
Born Died Occupation Wife Parents
Hale Waihona Puke 1871-08-27,Indiana 1945-12-28,Hollywood Novelist Sara White Sarah and John Paul Dreiser
Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Sarah and John Paul Dreiser, a strict Catholic family. John Paul Dreiser was a German immigrant from Mayen in the Eifel region, and Sarah was from the Mennonite farming near Dayton, Ohio; she was disowned for marrying John and converting to Roman Catholicism. Theodore was the twelfth of thirteen children (the ninth of the ten surviving). The popular songwriter Paul Dresser (1857–1906) was his older brother.
06Theodore Dreiser 文档
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)1) Biographical IntroductionBorn in Terre Haute, Indiana, the twelfth of thirteen children. German immigrant parents.His early years were full of poverty, emotional instability, religious bigotry in home, frequent moves dictated by financial necessity.At teen, in Chicago, he had a succession of minor jobs. After a year at Indiana University, he returned to Chicago, a reporter on the Chicago Globe.He worked for newspapers in St. Louis & Pittsburg before he arrived in New York in 1894.2) point of view(1) He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. He regarded Manas merely an animal driven by greed & lust in a struggle for existence in which only the ―fittest‖, the most ruthless, survive.(2) Life is predatory, a ―game‖ of the lecherous & heartless, a jungle strugglein which Man, being ―a waif and an interloper in Nature‖, a ―wisp in the wind of social forces‖, is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with no power whatever to assert his will.(3) No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internalforces & by the forces of social pressure.In the late 1970s, Dreiser took interest incommunism, American social problems, & the efforts of the oppressed to gain a better life.To Dreiser, not irreconcilable.The mechanistic foundations of life not as imprisoning but a complex of beauty & wonder in which the destructive forces could be lessoned through social change.the reconciliation : The Bulwark.(3) Style1) Without good structure2) Deficient characterization3) Lack in imagination4) Journalistic method5) Techniques in painting(4) Dreiser's Major WorksA prolific writer: Novels, collections of short stories, poems, plays, travel books,and essays (political), a number of autobiographical books.Sister CarrieThe Cowperwood Trilogy —The Financier, The Titan, and The StoicAn American TragedyOn Sister CarrieThe theme of the book:1. The theme in Sister Carrieis materialism. The theme is primarily personified through Carrie with her desire for a fine home, clothes and everything else money can buy.Materialism, including the desire for money, is an important theme in Sister Carrie. The materialism is shown mostly through Carrie's character but 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.2. It best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that men are controlled & conditioned by heredity, environment and chance, only a few extraordinary & unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly for their existence.Chicago is the scene of Sister Carrie.Dreiser uses Carrie to express his own longings for wealth, affection for the glitter & excitement of the city, which has come to symbolize the possibility for the realization of the American Dream.―The Magnet Attracting: a Waif amid Forces‖-controlled by two forces:1. internal forces:desires to fulfill American Dream, for social status & material comfort.(e. And yet she was intere sted in her charms…at a woman’s slipper)2. external forces- poverty: attraction of American Dream. (e. ―the magnet attracting city life‖;Carrie’s being attracted by Drouet’s material prospect, entrapped, became his mistress).Carrie is leaving home. This passage is typical Dreiser’s. He gives his thoughts about Carrie & the salesman she meets, and describes them.The first impression is not her opinions but her belongs. At the end of the novel, there is description of her, ends with the exact amount of money she holds. This emphasis on money will be a primary theme throughout the rest the novel. Discussion1. Please make comment on the three main characters.2. Please make comment on the end of the novel and the famous rocking chairsceneThree Main CharactersCarrie: She represents spirit, the longing for a finer & higher form of life, artistic aspiration, imagination, ideals, never be fully attained, without which life is meaningless.She refuses to accept her fate & instead strives unsuccessfully to find meaning & purpose for her existence.Drouet & Hurstwood not as ―saving hands‖;Drouet: an image of a woman pursuer with keen desire for the feminine.(…by an intense desires & admiration for the sex‖)He stands for the material lusts which lies at the bottom of worldly ambition. Hurstwood: A person with no higher goal than the satisfaction of his sensual inclination.3. chance: chance makes her an actress & her successConclusion:To Carrie, the world is cold & harsh, she is alone & helpless. She moves along, driven by desires , catches at any opportunities as first offered by Drouet, then by Hurstwood. A feather in the wind, she was totally at the mercy of forces she can’t comprehend, still less to say control.She just seeks to grasp the mystery of life, and thereby satisfies her desires for social status & material comfort. After a series of incidents & coincidences, Carrrie rises and obtains fame & comfort.The famous rocking chair scene:In spite of her success, she is not happy. She is lonely & dissatisfied. This is a picture of Carrie’s drifting with the tide. She has no control, no freedom of will, but she is not totally despairing, still singing & dancing, looking forward to bright future.. (This is the uniqueness of American naturalism: human impotence & hopelessness but not complete loss of confidence.)。
美国-文学Theodore-Dreiser
12/22/2019
2
• The outstanding American practitioner of naturalism. He was the leading figure in a national literary movement that replaced the observance of Victorian notions of propriety with the unflinching presentation of real-life subject matter.
Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub:Abook of the Mysteryand Wonder and Terrorof
Life,The color of a Great City, Dreiser Looks at Russia, Tragic Am10erica, America Is Worth Saving,Notes on Life
Free and Other Srories, Twelve Men Chains, Lesser Novels and Stories, A Galley of Women
Play
Plays of the Natural and Supernatural, The Hand of the Rotter
• Dreiser was often forced to battle against censorship because of his depiction of some aspects of life, such as sexual promiscuity, offended authorities and popular opinion.
Theodore Dreiser
·The Genius 《天才》autobiographical novel
• An American Tragedy 《美国的悲剧》1925
1915
• Bulwark
《堡垒》
1946
Comment & view
• a controversial figure in literary history. • works are powerful in their portrayal of the changing American life • but his style is considered crude. • The revival of naturalism in the 1930s enthroned Dreiser as the guide and pioneer for the latter-day naturalists, for it is in Dreiser’s works the American naturalism is said to have come of age. • social Darwinism • regarding man as merely an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the fittest, the most ruthless, survive.
works
• Sister Carrie first novel (1990) 《嘉莉妹妹》 • Jennie Gerhard short fiction (1911) 《珍妮姑娘》
·Trilogy of Desire
The Titan The Stoic
美国文学史Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
1871-1945
Dreiser, Hemingway and William Faulkner are the three big giants of the modern novel.
Theodore Dreiser His life
His life
After a period of study at the Indiana University . He became a reporter on the
Chicago Globe.
He movied to New York in 1894.
Theodore Dreiser
His life
Theodorer
The life-and-death struggle between a squid and a lobster.
Theodore Dreiser
His works
Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser
controversial figure
powerful in the portrayal of the changing American life
style is crude naturalism
Theodore Dreiser
His works
Sister Carrie (1900) Jennie Gerhardt (1911) Trilogy of Desire: The Financier (1912) The Titan (1914) The Stoic (1947) The Genius (1915) An American Tragedy (1925) Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928) The Bulwark (1946)
10 Theodore_Dreiser美国文学
As a novelist Dreiser made his debut with Sister Carrie, a powerful account of a young working girl‘s rise to success and her slow decline. “She was eighteen years of age, bright, timid and full of the illusions of ignorance and youth. Whatever touch of regret at parting characterized her thoughts it was certainly not for advantages now being given up. A gush of tears at her mother’s farewell kiss, a touch in the throat when the cars clacked by the flour mill where her father worked by the day, a pathetic sigh as the familiar green environs of the village passed in review, and the threads which bound her so lightly to girlhood and home were irretrievath
the help of his former teacher, he was able to spend the year 1889-1890 at Indiana University. Dreiser left after only a year. He was, however, a voracious贪婪 的 reader, and the impact of such writers as Hawthorne, Poe, Balzac, Herbert Spencer, and Freud influenced his thought and his reaction against organized religion.
Theodore_Dreiser
(西奥多· 德莱塞 )
representing works writing style
Life
the pioneer of modern fiction writer, and representatives of the American modern novel ,considered juxtaposed with Hemingway and Faulkner
Dreiser himself said:
It’s the life with its romance and cruelty, its pity and terror, its joys and anxiety, its peace and conflict. You may not like my vision but it is the only one that I have seen and felt, therefore, it is the only one I can give you .
About Sister Carrie
successful actress George Hurstwood life beggary
Caroline Meeber: pretty small-town girl
Uses men Used by men
lose control over suicide
the worst-written great novel in the world
Commercially successful and brings him wealth
Writing style
美国文学 笔记 Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)A Short Bio•Birth: extremely poor, intensely religious, big family, German origin.•Education: sponsored by a teacher attending Indiana University.•Work experiences: (Chicago) real estate clerk and collection agent→a newspaper reporter; (NY) a magazine editor & writer→ 1911, a full-time writer.•Political stand: Left-oriented and joined the Communist Party shortly before his death.Literary Career•Major literary genres: short story & novels•Short stories: Free and Other Stories 1918, Chains 1921, Five Furniture 1930•Major novels:•Sister Carrie《嘉莉妹妹》1900 (his 1st novel, withheld for being immoral/for its relentless honesty in presenting the true nature of American→ became famous in the 1920s.);•Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》1911;Major Novels•Cowper wood trilogy (“Trilogy of Desire” “欲望三部曲”):•The Financier《金融家》1912, The Titan 《巨人》1914, The Stoic《斯多葛》1917 →Harsh portrait of a type of ruthless businessman like Frank Cowperwood→“Might is right”/the powerful and the ruthless alone survive in this amoral world.•The Genius 《天才》1915 (autobiographical work);•An American Tragedy《美国悲剧》1925 (his masterpiece).Major Features•Determinism & tragic ending:•Characters are unable to assert their will against natural and economic forces.•Hu man tragedy comes as a result of collision between man’s biological needs and society’s ruthless manipulation.•Stubborn honesty: simple but highly moving characters•Natural narrative (ponderous):•massive details;•serious tone: never satirical or comic;•journalistic method of reiterationLiterary Position•“the wheelhouse of American naturalism”•“chief spokesman for the realistic novel”•“a profound and prescient critic of debased American values”Naturalism 自然主义•Background:•Charles Darwin’s On Origin of Species (1859):•The struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, natural selection;•Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism:•the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit would fall victim in the natural course of events to economic forces.• A literary movement that emerged in France, America, and England during the late 19th century and early 20th century and that emphasizes biological and socioeconomic determinism in fiction and drama. •Emergence in Europe: Emile Zola and Thomas Hardy.Major Features•Major characters:•human beings as higher animals whose lives are determined by the laws of heredity and environment and by basic drives over which they have no control: sex, hunger, and fear.•The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires.•The naturalists’ recurrent concerns: Social systems that destroy and dehumanize; Individual experience of loss and failure.Writing Style•Scientifically accurate; Objective; Truthful in depicting life as a brutal struggle for survival; Factually detailed.Realism vs. Naturalism•Similarities:•Both strive for objectivity; Both are interested in the commonplace in contemporary life. •Differences:•Naturalists d escribe real life in a crude way, the way things really are; they don’t escape into a world of imagination.•Naturalists would go to the slums and write about the life of poverty and crime instead of going to a middle-class neighborhood and writing about middle-class life.•The naturalists’ tone in writing is less serious and less sympathetic but more detached and more pessimistic.Representatives of American Naturalism•Stephen Crane(1871-1900)斯蒂芬·克莱恩：The Red Badge of Courage《红色英勇勋章》•Jack London杰克·伦敦：The Call of the Wild《荒野的呼唤》Martin Eden《马丁·伊登》•Theodore Dreiser•Frank Norris: the Octopus《章鱼》An American TragedyQ: Who are the major characters?Clyde Griffiths –a bellboy in the hotel; Roberta Alden –a working girl at the factory; Sondra Finchley –daughter of a wealthy bossQ: Why is the story not only a tragedy, but also an “American Tragedy”?• A tragedy: A man’s losing struggle against forces that shape human destiny.•Clyde’s life is doomed t o a tragedy. He attempts to break free of the environmental, economic, social, and fatalistic forces but fails. These forces, such as the mental and physical traits that he inherits at birth, the surroundings in which he grows up, the financial status of his family, their lower-class background, and happenstance (the automobile accident, for example), cannot be surpassed by any human being in the world.•An American Tragedy:•The story of An American Tragedy reveals the cultural and moral price of the frenzied drive for wealth and status which is officially encouraged as the realization of the “American Dream”. It is the materialistic society that is as much to blame as the murderer himself.Chapter XLIIWhat happens at the beginning of this episode?What’s the difference between the two letters in terms of their language and the different life they represent? What’s your impression on Sondra and Roberta?What does Clyde feel when both letters reach him?What does he do after reading the letters?What impresses him in the newspaper?What does Clyde feel after reading the news?Chapter XLIIIWhere does Clyde decide to go finally?What attracts Clyde most when he arrives at Twelfth Lake? Could he entertain himself with Sondra freely? Why?What happens in the moon night when Clyde is with Sondra? Do you think Sondra is serious about their relationship?What does Sondra tell Clyde the next morning and what’s her declaration?What does Clyde suggest? What’s Sondra’s reaction?Can you describe Clyde’s response wh en Sondra refuses to elope with him? Does Clyde decide what to do at the end of this chapter?。
Theodore Dreiser
American literary naturalist
About the author
Dreiser（1871-1945）西奥 多· 德莱塞，美国小说家。生于印第 安纳州特雷霍特镇。父亲是贫苦的 德国移民。他在公立学校接受了早 期教育(12岁便辍学开始自谋生计)， 以后由人资助进入印第安纳大学学 习一年，一生的大部分时间从事新 闻工作。走遍芝加哥、匹兹堡、纽 约等大城市，广泛深入地观察了解 社会，为日后的文学创作积累了丰 富的素材。 Dreiser是美国现代小说的先驱和 代表作家，被认为是同海明威、福 克纳并列的美国现代小说的三巨头 之一。
1947 The Stoic《斯多噶》欲望三部曲第三部
Sister Carrie
《嘉莉妹妹》是美国文学史上最著名的作 品之一，是美国伟大的自然主义作家 Dreiser的处女作。小说描写了农村姑娘 嘉莉来到大城市芝加哥寻找幸福，嘉莉 是个俊俏的农村姑娘，她羡慕大都市的 物质生活来到了芝加哥谋生。严酷的现 实破碎了她的美梦，迎接她的是失业和 疾病。在走投无路时，她做了推销员杜 洛埃的情妇，后来由于更大的欲望又做 了酒店经理赫斯特伍德的情妇。与赫斯 特伍德私奔后，在纽约由于偶然的机会 她成了走红一时的演员，挤上了上流社 会，实现了她的梦想，最终物质却无法 满足她心灵的寂寞，而赫斯特伍德也身 败名裂、穷困潦倒，以自杀终其一生。 该作品细腻地展示了嘉莉的生存景观及 心路历程，以真切的现实主义为鲜明的 特征，比较真实地揭露了20世纪初人们 狂热的追求美国之梦的悲剧事实，揭示 了驱驶人们享乐却最终幻灭的本能主题， 说明了在以金钱为中心的美国资本主义 社会里不可能有真正的幸福。
Representative Novelists: