浅析《嘉莉妹妹》中的自然主义_英语论文

An Analysis of Naturalism in Sister Carrie

摘要

西奥多·德莱塞(1871-1945)是美国最伟大的自然主义作家之一。他创造了许多文学作品，特别是嘉莉姐妹，坦率地描绘了美国社会道德的腐败和退化。嘉莉妹妹极大地推动了自然主义理论的成熟，是文学现代主义发展的重要里程碑。在这本书中，德莱塞采用达尔文主义和决定论的理论作为故事叙述的科学依据。自然主义者认为人类和其他动物一样，面对环境的力量，只能任其摆布。事实上，人的命运是受环境和遗传的控制，而不是人本身的意志。本文主要从环境因素和遗传因素两个方面探讨嘉莉姐妹的自然主义特征。本文的目的是更深入的了解自然主义思想。

关键词： 西奥多·德莱塞 自然主义 环境 遗传 局限性

Abstract 

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) is one of the representatives of America’s naturalist writers. He has created many literary works, especially Sister Carrie, that frankly depict the moral corruption and degeneration of American society. Sister Carrie, which is an important landmark in the development of literary modernism, contributes a lot to the maturity of Naturalism. In this book, Dreiser adopts the theories of Darwinism and Determinism as the scientific basis to illustrate the story. Naturalists believe that man’s fate is controlled by environment and heredity and he has no free will. This thesis attempts to discuss the naturalistic features in Sister Carrie mainly from two aspects: environmental factors and hereditary factors. The purpose of this paper was to acquire a deeper idea of naturalism. 

Key words: Theodore Dreiser; naturalism; environment; heredity, limitation

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Brief Introduction of Sister Carrie 1

1.2 Naturalism 2

1.2.1 The Definition of Naturalism 2

1.2.2 The Influence of Darwinism 2

1.3 Reviewing the Researches on Sister Carrie 3

2 The Environmental Factors on Carrie's Fate 5

2.1 The Living Environment 5

2.2 The Social Environment 6

3 The Hereditary Factors on Carrie' Fate 9

3.1 Beauty—The Key to Success 9

3.2 Carrie’s Endowed Talent 9

3.3 Carrie’s Insatiable Desire for Pleasure 10

4 The Limitation of Naturalism-- Pessimistic Determinism 11

5 Conclusion 11

References 13