嘉利妹妹.doc

学号：哈尔滨师范大学学士学位论文 题 目 从嘉莉妹妹看当时美国民众的金钱 观和道德观学 生 指导教师 讲师年 级 2009级 班专 业 英语教育系 别 英语教育系学 院 西语学院哈 尔 滨 师 范 大 学学士学位论文开题报告 论文题目 从嘉莉妹妹看当时美国民众的金钱 观和道德观学生姓名 指导教师 讲师年 级 2009级 班专 业 英 语 教 育2013年 3 月说 明本表需在指导教师和有关领导审查批准的情况下，要求学生认真填写。说明课题的来源（自拟题目或指导教师承担的科研任务）、课题研究的目的和意义、课题在国内外研究现状和发展趋势。若课题因故变动时，应向指导教师提出申请，提交题目变动论证报告。课题来源：导师指导下自拟题目。课题研究的目的和意义：目的：通过研究德莱塞创作的第一部长篇小说嘉莉妹妹里嘉莉的金钱观和道德观，来告诫人应该追求更高的精神境界而不是一味盲目地追求物质。意义： 通过综合中外学者的意见，再结合本文对嘉莉妹妹里美国民众的金钱观和道德观的研究，对人们世界观和道德观的提升有很重大的意义。国内外同类课题研究现状及发展趋势：国外：1 Bantam, (1992). Sister Carrie, New York Press2 Theodore Dreiser, (1981). Sister Carrie, Foreign Language Teaching and Studying Press3 Annette T. Rubinstein, (1997). American literature root and Flower, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press4 Donald, (2000). American Realism and Naturalism, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press 国内：1胡荫桐,刘树森,(2003).A Course American Literature, 天津：南开大学出版社 2 张媛,(2004).从嘉莉妹妹看德莱塞的美国自然主义,镇江高专学报.课题研究的主要内容和方法，研究过程中的主要问题和解决办法：主要内容：嘉莉妹妹美国自然主义作家德莱塞创作的第一部长篇小说，具有深远的时代意义和现实意义，在美国文学史上占有重要地位。嘉莉妹妹讲述一位农村女孩嘉莉不甘贫穷来到芝加哥实现自己的“美国梦”，最终成为纽约百老汇一位著名的演员，享受奢华的物质却陷入精神迷失的故事。主要问题：材料太多，需要很多时间去选择。需要很深刻地理解德莱塞和嘉莉妹妹。解决方法：即时主动与老师联系，上网搜集资料课题研究起止时间和进度安排：1. 2012年11月12日至11月30日：选导师及撰写论文方向。2. 2012年12月1日至12月31日：与导师商榷论文题目。3. 2013年1月1日至2013年3月15日：撰写并提交开题报告。4. 2013年3月16日至2013年4月25日：撰写并提交毕业论文。5. 2013年4月26日至2013年5月10日：准备并参加毕业论文答辩。课题研究所需主要设备、仪器及药品：无外出调研主要单位，访问学者姓名：指导教师审查意见：指导教师 （签字） 2013年3月 15日教研室（研究室）评审意见：理论教研室主任 （签字） 2013年3月 15日系（部）主任审查意见：英语系（部）主任 （签字） 2013年3月 15日GRADUATION PAPER FOR BACHELOR DEGREE HARBIN NORMAL UNIVERSITY      TITLE: On the Outlook of the Money and Moral in the Sister Carrie STUDENT: TUTOR: （Lect.）GRADE: Grade 2009MAJOR: English EducationDEPARTMENT: English Education DepartmentCOLLEGE: Faculty of Western Languages and Literatures May, 2013HARBIN NORMAL UNIVERSITYOn the Outlook of the Money and Moral in the Sister CarrieXxxAbstract: Sister Carrie was the first long novel written by naturalistic American writer Theodore Dreiser. It has profound historic and realistic meanings and it also takes up a very important position in the American literature. The novel broke away from the traditional writing style at the beginning of the 20th century so that Sister Carrie became a milestone in American literature. Sister Carrie tells us the story of a small country girl named Carrie who moves to Chicago to realize her “American Dream” and final becomes a Broadway star in New York. She is lost in sprit; despite she is living a luxurious life. Reading this fiction, we can easily notice Carrie different needs and desires arising gradually and also the betrayal of traditional moral code in the process of pursuing material gain. It seems to tell us that in modern society material supplies more and more abundantly, but we should never pursue it blindly and we should attach much importance to happiness and stability created by spirit. It is primary to think over the significance and the value of life.Key Words: Sister Carrie; desire; moral outlook; attitudes towards money 1. Introduction1.1 The Introduction of the AuthorTheodore Dreiser is one of Americas greatest writers, and he is the greatest naturalist writer as well. With the publication of Sister Carrie in 1900, Dreiser committed his literary force to opening the new domain of American naturalism. Peoples general reaction to Dreiser has always been negative. He has been called a “Crag of basalt”, solemn and ponderous and the worlds worst great writer, but his influence is prominent in the works of Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, and Ernest Hemingway, among others. At the age of thirteen, Dreiser was brought up in Terre Haule, Indiana, in misery and bruising poverty. At fifteen Dreiser fled from home and went to Chicago, where he washed dishes in a cheap restaurant, clerked in a store, and painted advertising signs. He read now and again, like one of his own helpless characters, and he dreamed of wealth and social success in such large city. When Dreiser was eighteen, a sympathetic teacher helped him enter the University of Indiana, but Dreiser suspension of schooling after a year and returned to Chicago, where he worked on other several of servants jobs and wandered the city streets at night, laying in impressions of drunks, thieves, prostitutes, and beggars. Dreisers own experience in Chicago and New York are the perfect materials for the story of a poor country figure that comes to the city to seek whatever she can find. The protagonist of the novel is Carrie Meeber, who leaves her rural home to seek her fortune in Chicago. She meets a person named Charles Drouet, who is a traveling salesman on the train. After arriving in Chicago, she finds a job in a shoe factory quickly, but the few income and hard work break her imagination. She quits the job, and becomes lonely and distressed, and it is a pity that she becomes Drouets mistress. When Drouet leaves away on a business trip, Carrie falls in love with George Hurstwood who is a married manager. Hurstwood and Carrie run away to New York, and live together for more than 3 years. In these 3 years, Carrie becomes more and more popular while Hurstwood falls. Carrie puts away him, so Hurstwood becomes a beggar, sinks lower and lower and in the end he committed suicide. On the contrary, Carrie becomes a popular star of musical comedies. However, though she has enormous success, she still feels lonely and empty. Sister Carrie represents Dreisers belief in appearing life honestly in novel. Dreiser completes this through accurate details, especially in his descriptions of the urban settings in which many of his stories take places. In his naturalistic descriptions, Dreiser sees his characters as victims of social and economic forces.1.2 The Introduction of Sister CarrieTheodore Dreiser was an outstanding naturalistic writer in American literature, and his work Sister Carrie was his first long fiction. The novels appearance meant great to American literature. It also took an important position in literary history. At the beginning of the 20th century in America, the fashionable trend was to write about the positive side of life through molding beautiful and faithful characters. However, the author had the courage to break through tradition and create a novel which clearly and cruelly showed the misery lower class suffered and the emptiness and vanity upper class enjoyed. As expected, after the novels publication, it received a storm of criticism and rebuke made by traditional critics and raised a lot of comments and arguments. In order to search for a reason, the argument attributed to Dreisers unusual ethics. He showed people a realistic and peaceful style in writing Carries private life, which caused great criticism by traditional morality guards. His ethics, though going against traditional morality, was formed by social background and his own experience. It is a true feeling from his heart. Afterwards, Sister Carrie became a historically meaningful milestone and influenced readers standards. So, Sister Carrie was very important in American literature. It is also meaningful to study this novel carefully.Because of its important position in literary history, scholars have made many different comments on it. The earliest comments could be divided in two branches: one approved this fiction and they thought Sister Carrie brought great influence to American literature; the other criticized that Dreiser did not tell the truth and denied the whole naturalistic literature. After a period of time, almost all the critics criticized the fiction by equaling this work to society and life. Furthermore, there appeared some extreme admire which departed from the relationship between history and society. There are many modern comments have been diversified, including psychological analyses of Sigmund Freud and feminist criticism. In addition to this, many results of research in the author and the origin appeared. Critics mainly analyzed the novel on its naturalism, feminism and the social scenes. Mou Ying of Nanjing Normal University has commented “the description of heroine life and fate was to show that fate decides peoples power, and natural power leads human life.” Another scholar Wang Yulian also comments “Carrie grew from a rural girl to a economically independent woman, she realized her potential.” There are many other comments like this.With comments above, I will analyze Sister Carrie from the point of figure analysis. Through analyzing the figures, we can see temporal peoples outlook of money and moral in the Sister Carrie. At the beginning of the novel, Carrie was an innocent and naive girl who was full of imagination to this world. She did not receive much education nor had any skill unique enough to make a living. In my opinion, it is right to analyze the fiction by analyzing the main figure because the fiction was wrote around Carrie. Dreisers naturalistic point embodied on Carrie, namely she was controlled by natural power, and she could not hold down her desire, which was a deficiency of heroes and heroines in naturalistic works. In order to discover Carries characteristics, first I will introduce Naturalism, the theory which influenced Dreiser greatly.There were many studies about Sister Carrie, they were about naturalism, about the American dream, about ethics, at the same time, and there were studies about Carries life and the revelations of it for people in modern life. And this paper is mainly on the outlook of money and moral in Sister Carrie. 2. Carries Material Pursuit Carrie was influenced by environmental factors and her own desires, which shaped her four typical characteristics: insatiable desires, violation of traditional morality, changing from dependence to independence, and her disillusionment of American Dream. 2.1 Insatiable DesiresAs far as know, Dreiser advocated Darwinism. He viewed the society as a huge jungle, where people seek for survival like animals. People were not free because they were controlled by their desire. He thought, “Everyones action is the direct reaction of a series of internal rushes and external attraction. Environment no longer limits desire, but it expresses desire fully, and finally proves that desire itself can never be satisfied.” We can see Carries continually upgrading desires and her insatiable attitudes throughout the book, which had been shown by the author in Carries psychological actions. Most of her desires are material, while at the end she turned to spiritual pursuit. Her first desire was to gain a stably material life. When Carrie had not taken a step on Chicago, she had been dreaming of a wonderful world. She came to find what she could obtain. She did not want to be a poor person any longer. When she set foot on the train, she was full of innocence and ignorance, with her ticket and just four dollars. She did not know what she would seek out in her dreamed city. Drouet was a stimulus to evoke Carries material desire. Fashionable clothes he wore and luxurious life he enjoyed evoked her endless desire. Drouet, like the snake in Eden who incited Eve, used his splendid words to arise Carries desire for goods. Drouet described Chicago as a shopping center where a dazzling array of beautiful exhibits was showing. His exterior appearance was also a good advertisement.His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time, but since become familiar as a business suit. The low crotch of the vest revealed a stiff shirt bosom of white and pink stripes. From his coat sleeves protruded a pair of linen cuffs of the same pattern, fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the common yellow agates known as cats-eyes. His fingers bore several rings-one, the ever-enduring heavy seal-and from his vest dangled a neat gold watch chain, from which was suspended the secret insignia of the Order of Elks. The whole suit was rather tight-fitting, and was finished off with heavy-soled tan shoes, highly polished, and the grey fedora hat. (Dreiser 13)His appearance showed her a new and abundant world. When Carrie saw the luxurious sight of Chicago, she could not control her desire for material. The inexorable reality in her sisters fate broke her dream which was caused by Drouet. The Hansons whole family was only able to meet their essential need, and they even depended on Carrie to help them financially. The short encounter with Drouet made her understand that Drouet needed her in a certain way, and the life in Hansons was not what she liked. She quickly began to know what she wanted. She began to find a job and she found one in a shoe factory. But because of sickness, she lost it soon. After that, there came another coincidence, she met Drouet again on the street. Then he helped her to realize her goal; meanwhile she began to have more desires.During her companying with her neighbor Mrs. Hale, she saw much more beautiful buildings, wide private grassland, and luxurious carriages. Her desire was raised again. She was certain that her happiness was right over there. She wanted to get more material wealth. But, Drouet could not satisfy her any longer. Then, there was another man went into her life and attracted her. That was Hurstwood. He attracted Carrie just like Drouet had been doing to her. He had much more wealth and personal charm, and his taste and experience were better than Drouet. The reason why Hurstwood got in touch with her was that he needed her eagerly. To Carrie, Hurstwood was not only a admirable lover, but also an object of which she took advantage to obtain her changing life and ideal. Later she became his lover, and enjoyed more happiness. But fate made fun of him. On the train to New York, after she knew she was deceived by Hurstwood, she still hesitated whether to get off or not. She did not get off because she hadnt made her decision. Her hesitation showed she wanted to get on another step.In New York, Hurstwood fell down little by little while Carrie was becoming famous. Carrie valued him no longer and she abandoned him. She obtained great success in h