【英语论文】《嘉莉妹妹》文学评论（英文）.doc

LITERATURE REVIEWAN ANALYSIS OF DREISERS SISTER CARRIE嘉莉妹妹文学评论An 18-year-old girl without money or connections ventures forth from her small town in search of a better life in Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel. The chronicle of Carrie Meeber's rise from obscurity to fame-and the effects of her progress on the men who use her and are used in turn-aroused a storm of controversy and debate upon its debut in 1900. The author's nonjudgmental portrait of a heroine who violates the contemporary moral code outraged some critics. A century later, Dreiser's characters continue to fascinate readers. The protagonist Carrie is still a controversial character. Many critics regard Carrie as a “fallen woman”, and there are also some critics regard her as a “new woman”. Many people hold such an opinion that Sister Carrie is a tragedy, in which carrie is described as an immoral woman and she had an empty life though she succeeded as a famous player at the end of the novel. They conclude that “it is impossible to possess true happiness in a money-oriented capitalism society.”(Li qi-shan 45).Jiang yu-qin says that “the city changed Carrie,a once innocent country girl into a seemingly successful empty life.” (Jiang yu-qin 135)In her abstract she points out that Carrie represents the women who “experience desiring,chasing,struggling,falling and disillusioning.” Carrie was successful eventually from material aspect, but still unhappy spiritually.We can find such a paragraph in Peng dan-kuis “Theodore and his Sister Carrie ”, “She(Carrie) has two persons to help her,but instead of getting better, she goes from bad to worse. Actually there is no one who can be the saviour for Carrie in the society. And she comes to realize it is impossible to be a success by working hard honestly.Carrie is just one of the many victims of the citys influence and of the capitalist society.” (Peng dan-kui 75)From this passage, we can conclude that Mr. Peng takes Carrie as a traditional woman victim in a corrupted society. In other words, he denies that Carrie has her own motivates as an independent person. There are also many critics about the character carrie abroad.For example, in Sister Carrie and the Hidden Longing for Love: Sublimation or Subterfuge? Leon F. Seltzer says, “The thesis of this study is Carries longing is shown by Dreiser(though never clearly understood by him )to be a longling for love and emotional relatedness. Such a longing, however, can never know fulfillment because, on one level, carrie is depicted as deficient in the capacity to love and, on far more essential level, her creator ( a man at once sterile and promiscuous, who.)was incapable of appreciating either the nature or possibiities of human intimacy.” (Leon F. Seltzer 192)We notice that seltzer descried carrie as a woman without the capability of love. Here he also attacked dreiser.From so many critics, we can see there are really many people they dont appreciate Carrie. They think she is degenerate, immoral,cold-blooded, and without a lofty soul. But like everything has two sides, lots of other people have different viewpoints. They dont take carrie so simply, so traditionally. They argue that carrie, from some aspects, stands for “new woman”, which we can see in Wu hong-yuns Sister Carrie under the unconventional discourse of feminism. First she declares that “Carrie is not a victim ” of the captilist world, on the contrary, she is a victor, because “she (Carrie) proves her ability and realizes her value through her own efforts in the capitalist fatherhood society.”(Wu hong-yun 36) Then Mrs. Wu put forward the idea “Carrie is not a immoral woman”, and she admires Carrie highly with the words like “spirit independently”, “rational and witty”, “hard working”, “a new woman” from the feminist angle. She even justifies Carries desire for material gains. She insists that carrie shows a quality of “modern females”. Its not superisingly that we can find almost the same words in Wang gang-huas article. He even puts Carrie to a new higher level. Here is a paragraph from his Carries desires and motives : “in short, carrie shaped her own perfect image through the reflection in mirror , the discernment and the confirmation of the surrounding people. This kind of self-shaping cultivated carries own consciousness, that is, she regards herself as an independent subject, and keeps an independent position in social activities. Thereafter, carrie gradully stepped into being active from passive.” (Wang gang-hua 92)If we surf on the internet, we can find lots of critics about Sister Carrie. Clare Virginia Eby says in his Cultural and Historical Contexts for Sister Carrie, “Dreiser's evolutionary treatment of ethics in Sister Carrie ultimately verges toward the revolutionary, in that he tries to get readers to suspend judgment on actions that would typically be condemned as immoral, such as Carrie's premarital sex and Hurstwood's theft. Dreiser discourages readers from viewing Carrie as immoral, instead drawing attention to the obsolescence of traditional moral standards. The ending of the novel is especially significant in this regard, for Dreiser breaks with long-standing literary tradition that "fallen women" must be fully punished, preferably by a grisly death. Carrie, to the contrary, may be unfulfilled or lonely at the novel's end, but she is very much alive and eminently successful in the eyes of the world.”He added, “Carrie is not simply rebelling against her husband(Hurtswood) but more significantly against the role that women were traditionally supposed to follow. As historian Barbara Welter describes the nineteenth century ideal for the white middle class, the "True Woman" was expected to be pious, pure, domestic, and submissive. However a competing model for femininity emerged in the U.S. around the 1880s. The "New Woman" typically had a career and was economically independent. Frequently New Women aligned themselves with members of their own sex rather than in conventional marriages. Carrie follows this pattern Yet the typical New Woman was better educated and frequently more politically inclined than Carrie, and so we might best think of Dreiser's heroine as a transitional figure, moving from the Victorian model of True Woman toward the recognizably modern New Woman.” From these two paragraphs, we can know clearly about Ebys understanding of Carrie.Too many critics about Carrie exist from 1900 when dreiser finished the novel till now, and I cant cite them one by one. Here I just classified them into two groups. From the totally different views, we can see that different people does hold different opinions. To me, I also have my own understanding of Carrie.First, I really cant agree Carrie is a “fallen woman”. Those who criticized that she is greedy for material gains and she loses her sense of morality when she pursues her desire, to me, they failed to understand the novel deeply and they failed to treat carrie equally as well. Its quite true that carrie had sexual relations with two men, which maybe the most unbearable thing for those who said Carrie is “immoral”, but when we read the novel, actually we can say that Carries intention was to have a good husband. First she met Drouet who attracted her with his beautiful clothes and fine manners which represented he belongs to a high class. That is very nature, as I say. Carrie came from a poor peasant family and she wanted to search a better life in Chigago. When she met such a young man who was “ an experienced traveller, a brisk man of the world”(Dreiser 9) and was so courteous to her. “It disposed her pleasantly toward all he might do.” (10)After Carrie arrived the Hansons, she found things disappointing. She did efforts to search a job, but she failed at last. Drived by the desire for survival, she eventually accepted drouet. Here we should notice that though the main reason Carrie accepted Drouet is he had the money to support her, but on the other hand, Carrie did have some good feelings on him. Besides, Drouet promised to marry her. So at the beginning, the story went like lots of other love stories. Poor young beautiful girl comes to a big city and wants a “better life”, then she meets a rich man who makes she believe that they love each other, inevitably she wishes a wedding with the man. That happens a lot now. but in the fact, the man didnt have a plan to marry her. And later, Carrie found another man who seemed worth her love. Hurtswood stands for a calss higher than Drouets. He was more attractive and he knew womens heart better. Carrie once hesitated, but Drouet really couldnt touch her heart any longer. Drouet himself was not a guy who really wanted to get married. So Carrie didnt resist when Hurstwood lied to her and brought her to New York. That happened on a base that Carrie thought Hurstwood would marry her and gave her a happy life. Thats humans instinct. Carries instinct is to survive and to live better. Thats all. She didnt have any intrigues like Mrs.Hurstwood. We still can say she is pure. She was just drived by the circumstances. So sexual relations with two men didnt make carrie a “fallen woman”. Secondly, I dont agree completely that Carrie is a “new woman”. When Carrie met the living crisis in New York, at the beginning, she still believed that Hurstwood could made all things right. But later, she found Hurstwood was falling rapidly. She tried to encourage Hurstwood to find a job to support the family, but he failed. He couldnt find his place in the bigger city New York at all. But Carrie didnt want to wait and die. She got a job in a theatre,not so easily, then she left him. Here we can often see many critics said carrie is “stone-hearted”. To me, Carries behavior may be a bit cruel, but still can be forgave. Think what an enviroment she lives in! she needs to live! I also explain her action as a result of her instinct.Next, Carrie made herself successful on the stage by a small chance. She got money and fame gradually. But these cant make her a “new woman”, because her success has much contingency. Her self-consciousness hadnt be aroused untill she met Ames, a young engineer. His influence causes Carrie to become disillusioned with her success as an actress in comedy and makes her desire to perform more dramatic works. He introduced some writers to Carrie, and also gave some astonishing views about the surrounding people, which made Carrie think he was a special man. From that, Carrie started to think about lots of other things deeply. I say, Carrie at this moment is still not a “new woman”. She doesnt has her own understanding of the world. She still cant think and action as an independent woman.To sum up, I dont think Carrie is “immoral”. When she is drived by her instinct to find a way to live, she has nothing to blame for. As Jerome Loving said, “For him(dreiser), man-all of humankindwas still halfway between animal instinct and ideal of human morality,and so alack of morality was to be expected.”(Jerome Loving 92 The last titan:a life of theodore dreiser)To some extent, I agree with Ebys opinion that Carrie is “a transitional figure, moving from the Victorian model of True Woman toward the recognizably modern New Woman”.Notes:Clare Virginia Ebyhttp:/www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/dreiser/scculhist.html待添加的隐藏文字内容3Bibliography:(1) 李其珊.嘉莉妹妹中的对比和象征艺术J玉林师范学院学报（哲学社会科学）2004(2) 姜玉琴. 城市:一个承载事业、绞杀灵魂的谬体-从德莱塞的嘉丽妹妹到尤凤伟的泥鳅 J外国文学研究 2004(3) 彭丹逵. 德莱塞和他的嘉莉妹妹 J嘉兴大学学报 1995(4) Leon F. Seltzer. Sister Carrie and the Hidden Longing for Love: Sublimation or Subterfuge?- Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 1976) , pp. 192-209(5) 王刚华. 嘉莉妹妹的欲望和驱动力 J外国文学研究 2002(6) Clare Virginia Eby .Cultural and Historical Contexts for Sister Carriehttp:/www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/dreiser/scculhist.html (7) Dreiser,Theodore. Sister Carrie. Pennsylvania:University of Pennsylvania Press 1981(8) Loving,Jerome. The last titan:a life of theodore dreiser. California :University of California Press 1997(9) Pizer ,Donald. New Essays on Sister Carrie. New York:Cambridge University Press 1991(10) Yoshinobu, Hakutani . Sister Carrie and the Problem of Literary Naturalism Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Apr., 1967) , pp. 3-17