完Theodore-Dreiser
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
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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.