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The Naturalistic Features in Sister Carrie

Author: ChenBo
Tutor: ZhangQiang
School: Central China Normal University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Darwinism naturalistic feature instinct consumer environment duality
CLC:
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2004
Downloads: 3542
Quote: 1
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Abstract


In 1900 American journalist Theodore Dreiser published his first novel Sister Carrie. Since then the critics have been studying Sister Carrie from various perspectives. But they seldom make a integrated study of it. This paper attempts to study and summarize the naturalistic features in Sister Carrie.Sister Carrie reflects the profound transformations of American life in the late nineteenth century. Among the most sweeping changes registered in the novel are the economy’s shifting from an agricultural base to an industrial one, and the erosion of traditional values by Darwinism. Chapter 2 briefly introduces the historical and cultural contexts for Sister Carrie, focusing on Darwinism and Determinism, American naturalism, and the rise of Consumerism.As a naturalist, Dreiser expresses the characteristics of naturalism in most of his works. The themes of Darwinism and Determinism and style of clumsiness and massiveness, are the common features of the Dreiser story, which also characterize Sister Carrie. But as a journalist and immigrant, Dreiser challenges the American literary traditions frequently and forms his unique characteristics of naturalism,which also can be seen in Sister Carrie. Chapter 3 then analyses both the common and the unique characteristics of naturalism in Sister Carrie.Chapter 4 focuses on the naturalistic features in Sister Carrie in terms of consumer environment. Environment is an important factor in the naturalistic novels which controls humans’ fates. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser attaches great importance to consumer environment. He describes excessively the environment, which consists of the consumer cities, the department stores, the consumer environment in restaurant, and theatre life. Likewise he depicts the consumers’ behaviors in consumer environment.Chapter 5 sums up the application of duality in the novel.Duality, a division or the process of dividing into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictorygroups or entities, is used in Sister Carrie by Dreiser to highlight his naturalistic views. Dreiser’s best writing springs from the dualities generated by opposing ideas. As a classic novel, Sister Carrie owes its success mostly to the dualities hightlighting its naturalism. They include the duality in Dreiser’s interventions in the text, the duality of Dreiser’s natualist figure in Sister Carrie, the duality reflecting Darwinism in Sister Carrie, the duality reflecting consumer environment in Sister Carrie, and the duality of Carrie’s desire.In conclusion, this paper asserts that Sinter Carrie is a naturalistic novel with its unique features as Dreiser attaches great importance to the influence of the consumer environment in the novel and frequently adopts the device of duality to highlight his naturalistic views.

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