References

 Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Literature Reviews

Theodore Dreiser’s first novel, Sister Carrie, is a work of crucial importance in his literary career as well as American literature. Though the novel, which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of Hurstwood, is a challenge to the tradition, it undeniably presents the real American society at that time. Dreiser precisely exhibited the social changes which are caused by social reforming, such as the rural-urban immigration, cold and impersonal urban factories, the contrast between the rich and poor, the consumption culture, people’s intense desire for wealth and shaking off poverty. Through his frank, bold language, Dreiser truthfully reflected the profound transformations in American life in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. 

Criticisms and commentaries on the novel have been endless since its publication. The novel attracts more and more people to think deeply into it. In different historical periods, scholars have made various comments from different perspectives. Before the mid-1960s, scholars were active in the criticisms of the themes, style and characterization. Since the mid-1960s, with the wider acceptance, the public began to dig into the general and special reason of the novel. This was about the naturalistic background at that time, and Dreiser’s specific viewpoint about the world——Dreiser’s naturalism. Dreiser in his authorship, tested what he knew from direct experience with what he learnt from reading Charles Darwin, Ernst Haeckel, Thomas Huxley, which lent support to the formation of unique Dreiser’s naturalism. Since the mid-1980s, social and cultural dynamics were taken into account, and people turned to some issues like urbanization and commercialization. Sister Carrie was recognized as one of the earliest novels that reflected people drifting in a transitional society. New phenomena sprang up as a consequence, like deterioration of natural environment, worship of money and commodity, spiritual vacuum and oppression of women and so on. So many perse critical opinions about the novel focused on American dreams and American tragedies, morality and values, feminism，consumer culture and so on at that period. 

Viewing from the point of feminism, criticism to Sister Carrie can be mainly pided into four groups. First, some studies insist that Carrie is “the new woman”. For example, Weir maintains that Dreiser took a positive attitude toward Carrie’s struggle. “His compassion for her and his ability, in the first half of the novel, to make the reader acknowledge the justness of her aspirations distinguishes his characterization from other conceptions of social careerists[Weir, 1972]”. Weir describes how Carrie’s aspiration makes sense in Dreiser’s writing. Unlike most American writers who pictured their protagonists as docile traditional women, Dreiser accepted the aspirations of his protagonists. Carrie was Dreiser’s first expression of his idea about women’s social ambitions and struggles. According to Xu Wenhui’s The Way to Success: An Analysis of the Main Character, Carrie in Sister Carrie[2010], Carrie went through three stages in her way to success. They are the rough way in Chicago, the rise of life, and success on the stage. Xu Wenhui presents the external pressure and the struggle Carrie has made step by step. It is suggested in her thesis that Carrie is a woman with her own independence and resolution, opposite to Minnie, who is a representative of traditional women, family-oriented, husband-dependent without their own thoughts and interests. At the later stages, though Carrie chases her life through Drouet and Hurswood, she grasps “the opportunity and keep the luck[Xu, 2010]” which needs intelligence and endeavors. So Carrie is regarded as a woman who is intelligent and brave. Similar to Xu Wen hui’s opinion, Qing Huaifang and Hu Zongfeng reinterpret the “new woman” image of Sister Carrie through the perspective of “the second sex” in Behind “New Woman”——A Review on Sister Carrie in Light of Feminism[2005]. They argue that Carrie’s performance in her three-time seeking work indicates her being a financially empowered “new woman”. But behind “new woman”, Carrie still exists as “the second sex”, an object of male. It indicates that Carrie leads her life in the guidance of Drouet , Hurstwood, and Ames, though in the process she owns her independence.