德莱塞小说中的欲望观—浅析《嘉莉妹妹》中人物的欲望

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摘 要

西奥多·德莱塞是美国二十世纪著名作家，他的作品贴近社会生活，探讨人类的物质欲望。《嘉莉妹妹》是他的第一部长篇小说，讲述了嘉莉从农村少女成为百老汇明星的经历。本文试图从自然主义角度解读《嘉莉妹妹》，通过分析《嘉莉妹妹》中主要人物的欲望，探析环境因素和自然因素是怎样影响人物命运的。欲望是小说中的一种自然驱动力，本文着重呈现本能欲望对人的行为的驱使和对人的行为的支配。

关键词：德莱塞；《嘉莉妹妹》；欲望；自然主义

Content

1. Introduction………………………………………………………..………..1

1.1 About the author……………………………………………………………..1

1.2 About the novel……………………………………………………………...1

2. Literature Review………………………………………………………..….2

2.1 Research abroad……………………………………………………..............2

2.2 Research at home…………………………………………………………....3

3. Relative theories about naturalism…………………………………………4

3.1. Zola’s theory of naturalism………………………………………………....4

3.2. Darwin’s theory of evolution……………………………………………….4

4. The limitations of naturalism……………………………………………….5

5. The analysis of the desire of main characters in Sister Carrie ...…………7

5.1 Sister Carrie’s desire for materials………………..…………..…………….8

5.2 Hurst Wood’s desire for power………………………..………………...….9

5.3 Drouet’s desire for sex…………………………………………………….10

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………......11

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...12

1. Introduction

1.1 About the author

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) is a famous American realism writer in the 20th century. Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Sarah Maria and John Paul Dreiser.John Dreiser was a German immigrant from Mayen in the Eifel region, and Sarah was from the Mennonite farming community near Dayton, Ohio. Her family disowned her for converting to Roman Catholicism in order to marry John Dreiser. Theodore was the twelfth of thirteen children (the ninth of the ten surviving). Paul Dresser (1857–1906) was one of his older brothers; Paul changed the spelling of his name as he became a popular songwriter. They were reared as Catholics.After graduating from high school in Warsaw, Indiana, Dreiser attended Indiana University in the years 1889–1890 before dropping out. His novels describe the real American society which are in the quick development of capitalism at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. He widely describes the social life with multi classes in America for the first time and opens up new areas for American realism literature.

1.2 About the novel

Sister Carrie is Theodore Dreiser’s first work which exposes the social reality without god in that period. In his work, people lost in their own desire. The story is about Sister Carrie, a pretty country girl, who came to Chicago to make a living for admiring the city’s material life. However, the cruel reality made her dream broken and brought her unemployment and disease. When she lost all hope, she became a salesman’s mistress called Drouet, and later became a mistress of a hotel manager Hurst Wood because of the bigger desire. After she eloped with Hurst Wood, she became a famous actress by accident and entered upper – class society in New York. Then she abandoned poor Hurst wood and pushed him into the path of despair. However, what did the so-called upper-class life give her? She felt empty and sat in the rocking chair dreaming about the happiness that would not get.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Research abroad

Since Sister Carrie came out, the United States has set up Dreiser Research Association.There are two factions about this book in American public opinions. The Pioneer Times and Interior Newspaper considered Dreiser as American Zola and thought Sister Carrie as a great American novel. Although these critics also thought that Sister Carrie and Hurst Wood were short of strong sense of morality, but in general, they are sure about its status of art. Among all the critics who support Dreiser most is Mencken. He thought Dreiser wasn’t the follower of Frank Norris and Zola, because he absorbed useful ideas of Horthon, Owen, Herbert and Spencer. Many other writers appreciated Sister Carrie. Baldwin thought Dreiser was the most unique and greatest novelist in America, Lasko who considered Dreiser as advocate of freedom in the 1920s and defended the non moral in Sister Carrie. Matheson regarded it as historical records in Dreiser’s lifetime. The first American Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis once said fondly that Dreiser wrote his first work Sister Carrie (English version) 30 years ago and I read it 25 years ago, it is like a free and strong western wind blowing into the United States which was block and depressing, and it brought us the first fresh air after Mark Twain and Whitman. Another group as the representative of Life and Business News held a negative attitude in Sister Carrie in general. They thought Sister Carrie promoted moral decay and corruption with some words such as “the reality is too much”and “depressing”. Stuart Sherman’s criticism about Dreiser is the most powerful and influential. In Mr. Dreiser’s naturalism of Theodore, he criticized that Dreiser didn’t describe the real American society but regarded people as animals. He ignored the duty of novelist --- to understand and reflect the development of characters. At the same time of criticizing Dreiser, the naturalistic literature was denied. Sherman holds the view that the realist novels show people"s behavior while naturalistic novel present animal’s behavior. There are many critical articles including Door Ken, Lin, vodka, etc. in The Stately Theodore Dreiser (1955) which was co-edited by Alfred Cajun and Charles Shapiro.The book was of great value in that period. In the Critics in the UK, Sister Carrie has got high praise. Daily Mail thought that it is a great novel written by American people. Defender pointed out that Sister Carrie is true, sharp, without prejudice, and that it is a document of great historical value in America. Besides, some other critics thinks that Sister Carrie is a rare book which has accurate observation and is full of emotional power.

2.2 Research at home

The novel is very popular in Chinese readers and scholars. Scholars have explored this novel from different angles. But the rising criticism of Sister Carrie appeared comparatively late and roughly started from 1978, only about 30 critical works in Chinese are available and some of them are in English. Much of Dresier’s criticism in China focuses on the traditional elements such as the theme, style and the cultural significance of his Sister Carrie. They tend to expose the cruelty of an industrial society and its resulting in the distortion of human nature. For example, in Foreign Literature Study, essays like On Sister Carrie’s Realism (1982) by Luo Guanghan, A Brief Comment on Dreiser (1984) by Xu Ruzhi, A Comment on Dreiser’s Fiction (1989) by Li Guangxi, A Feminist Reading of Sister Carrie’s on the Ambivalence of Dreiser’s View of Womanhood (2003) by Lin Bin. In the early 1930s, Qu Qiubai a great pioneer of new literature movement has introduced him in his writings. The praise for Carrie has always been less than the blame on her, and it has been said that she kept illicit relationship with men. Zhang Ling regarded her as a charmless woman in the article Dreiser, Naturalism in Realism, and said that she had “poorer moral concept and colder heart”and so on. While in New Selected Readings in American Literature edited by Li Gongzhao, she was described to “use unscrupulous divisive tactics for promotion”.

Everyone was pursuing happiness, but went further on the way. What is happiness? Dreiser didn’t give the answer, either. He is also a member lost in the desire. The characters in his works have his shadow and his mind has changed a lot during his life.Based on the background of naturalistic literature, the thesis tries to explore the desire of different characters in Sister Carrie. It aims to expose the reality of American society which was full of materialistic prosperity and moral decline. This paper wants to warn people to pursue happiness in right ways.

3. Relative theories about naturalism

3.1. Zola’s theory

Emile Zola is a leader of the naturalist literature. His master piece, Les Rougon-Macquart is another literary monument after la Comédie Humaine. His major works always break through various restrictions of naturalism and feature with distinctive realism.

Zola is a true representative of naturalist creation and theory. His viewpoint of naturalism theory comprises four aspects: Firstly, naturalism is a special product of the 19th Century. Secondly, naturalist method is a scientific method. Thirdly, the most basic requirement of naturalism is reality. Fourthly, naturalism requires the purpose of social morality of art.

Zola holds the view that the purpose of a novelist was to be a scientist, to place his characters in a situation and then to watch the influences or heredity and environmental destroy them, or they were good enough, to watch them overcome the force of heredity and environment.

Many American naturalists are influencial deeply by Zola. They seek explanations of human behavior in a natural science, and are skeptical, at least, of organized religion and beliefs in human free will. Naturalistic writers use a scientific method to write their novels according to the objective study of human beings; they study human beings governed by forces such as instinct, heredity and environment with the technique of excessive depictions of details pioneered by the realists.

The naturalism is one of the most influenced genres in the literary history of the world. It took place in French in the late half of 19 Century after Classicism, Enlightenment and Romanticism. Later, it spreaded to and made a significant influence on various countries covering Germany，America, Japan and China in terms of literature creation. Zola’s naturalist literature established the model for such a literature genre combining literature with natural science. Literature genre such as Zola"s naturalism is outstanding in the world literature treasures.

3.2. Darwin’s theory of evolution

After Renaissance and Enlightenment, the rational thought of modern science has been established. During the middle and later of 19 Century, Charles Darwin left Monty and advocated the first stage of science. Based on thinking and ration, it provides some thinking accordance for his establishment of natural selection in his theory of evolution. The journey at his youth had accumulated a great number of on-spot data for him, thus triggering his thinking about evolution of species and finally forming a complete system.

He suggests that there are struggles for survival among creatures, while the adaptor to survive, the one that does not adapt is to be eliminated. This is a natural selection. With the heredity, variation and natural selection, growing from low level to high level, from simple to complex, and species increasing, creature evolves and develops. The above three viewpoints are what we are often heard, “natural selection, survival of the fittest”. At present, with the emerging of genetics, it provides important evidences for genetic study. In fact, it is the “gene” that competes with the natural selection of creatures. Except the biology, his theories have made strong influences upon the development of literature, anthropology, psychology and philosophy.

4. The limitation of naturalism

The naturalists portray people and events and people objectively and precisely without idealizing them. They view people as part of the animal world. The characters in naturalistic writings are always controlled by internal drives and external forces. Firstly, naturalism is pessimistic determinism. It thinks that people are helpless creatures and are completely controlled by environmental determinism and genetic determinism. Some powerful and mysterious force which cannot be controlled by human beings have decide the fate of people in advance. No matter how hard people work, they can’s change the fate. Take Hurst Wood as an example, after the failure of business, Carrie left him. What he did was just complained and lost his heart. He couldn’t have killed himself. He can start all over again. He was a typical example of pessimistic determinism.

Besides, human behavior is regarded as animal one. It considers people as a strange combination of barbarity and reason and thinks that these two forces inside human beings have been struggled for the mastership constantly. In the current stage of evolution, people tend to be bestial. So, most of people’s behavior is driven by the instinct desire. Drouet was totally controlled by his instinctive desire of pursuing women and ignored the morality.

Naturalism takes a kind of attitude of non-moral towards the behavior of the characters in the novel. Animalization in human nature should not be rationalized. Otherwise it will bring in calculable disasters to the development of human society. In addition, people can’t ignore the important and indispensable role which morality plays in social life. If there isn’t any morality to restrain and regulate the behavior of members of the society, the entire society will become a jungle where morality decays and is full of chaos.

5. The analysis of the desire of main characters in Sister Carrie

5.1 Sister Carrie’s desire for materials

The process of Carrie’s success in the urban fully embodies the essence of social Darwinism that human in the jungle of society by means of natural selection, survival of the fittest. Carrie’s genetic advantages, such as beauty, the god-given talent of showing the desire of acting and her instinctive desire of pursuing happiness prove that she is the fittest in natural selection, the selected lucky dog. So, she is destined to be successful.

In the novel, the writer focuses on Carrie’s desire. Carrie is a woman full of desire, the desire for money, just because of her human nature. When she was young, she dreamed of “alaces and all kinds of luxurious places in fairly stories”. (Dreiser, 2008: 35) Carrie began the pursuit of money as soon as she got to the city Chicago from Columbia, Carrie thought that she dressed shabbily when she saw Drouet’s fashionable dress on the train. Suddenly she felt as if she dressed in rags and the shoes she wore were rather worn. Drouet’s description of the theatre in Chicago City and beautiful houses made her crazy. “But her heart was aching because she looked so inappreciable in front of the splendid metropolis.”(Dreiser, 2008: 98) Carrie was described clearly as a person being drawn by her desire. When she arrived in Chicago, she found that she couldn’t enjoy the life she had dreamed because of the reality. She had to work hard for her three meals a day, for a coat and in order not to suffer her sister"s eyes, all of this made her aware of the power of money. At that time, she had to work hard in order to meet her basic needs until she met Drouet again. She was in a difficult situation without a job, Drouet gave her “two pieces of soft, nice ten-dollar bills” (Dreiser, 2008: 51), which made Carrie give up the traditional moral concepts to live with Drouet. In order to get the beautiful clothe sand meet her basic needs, she lived together with Drouet. Her submitting to Drouet indicated that her free will submits to her instinct.

After living with Drouet, he was very kind to her, took her to eat in the restaurant and buy her beautiful clothes, but gradually she discovered that Drouet just looked impressive but lack of real worth and interest. She wasn’t content to just eating and wearing, she needed a man who has something in common with her. Her desire waxed instinctively. At this time, Hurst Wood appeared and met all her needs. She was attracted to Hurst Wood who is mature, stable and attractive. She dated with him frequently and forgot how Drouet helped her and betrayed him. In order to satisfy her thirst for love, she betrayed the people who had helped her. It is believed to be one of the reasons why critics thought Carrie’s moral was lost.

After she moved to New York with Hurst Wood, Carrie found New York was more prosperous than Chicago. Her neighbor Lady Vance was a woman who was good at dressing up, wearing fashionable dress and a hat. When Carrie went shopping with her, she knew what she wanted, she needed the new dress in style, and the hat with feathers. What she needed most was to attract men’s attention as Mrs. Vance did. When Hurst Wood’s business failed, they had no income, Carrie became unsatisfied with Hurst Wood. Carrie went out and got a job an actress, unexpectedly, she became very famous. At this time, Carrie considered Hurst Wood as a burden and decided to move away. Although Carrie owned everything that she dreamed of, she was still dreaming in a rocking chair in the end. Her desire has not been satisfied because she equals material to happiness. In Chicago, when she was traveling with Mrs. Haier, she saw “the pale light shinning on the luxurious furnishings in houses”, her heart was taken up by children’s dream. “She imagined if she went through the ornately carved doors and walls, walked past the globe lamp, went through the carved glass door, there would be no sorrow or the disappointing world. She believed that this is happiness” (Dreiser, 2008: 113).

When Carrie succeeded at a period, she would be disappointed and unsatisfied with the present situation again because of the wrong understanding. As a result, she made further pursuing for her desire. She was totally controlled by her instinctive desire and became a woman lacking of morality. In fact, desire is the pure spirit, so people"s desire can’t be satisfied if they are only rich in material.

5.2 Hurst Wood’s desire for power

Hurst Wood is smart, but he is willing to pay a heay price of being called “thief” only to satisfy his own desires. Chapter 29 in the novel depcits the mental state of Hurst Wood when he took money. It shows the fierce struggle between instiinct and reason. But the latter force was too weak and cannot defy instinct. Finally, the instinct of wanting Carrie prevailed and Hurst Wood went to the road of perdition.

One’s desire for material leads to the desire for power. Hurst Wood lost in the desire of pursuing power. He lived an unhappy life and lost the lead role in his family. His wife wanted to enter the high society and was fond of the limelight. His daughter Jessica was 17 years old and she was in high school, she led a life of pleasure, Her mind were filled with love and elegant house. His son Hester Wood was 20 years old and also loves limelight. The family talked about who had bought a steam boat, who had made a fortune, who had bought a building, Hearst Wood was just the income source of the family. At that time, his desire was suppressed.

Although he was unsatisfied with the frustrating family life, he sometimes met several lively and humorous ladies. He had to care for his social status and think about gain and lost. However, Carrie broke this balance, and formed a strong contrast with his wife. He became the one who mostly lack reasons. Carrie was like the new light from the horizon while the former became the setting sun with no colours. In particular, What draws him most was Carrie’s obedience: no bold performance and no control. Carrie’s obedience met Hurst Wood"s need of power. We can judge his feelings of Carrie as the compensation of the loss of family power. We can also say that man usually follows his dream by instinct. He didn’t plan to get married with Carrie, and just wanted to be lovers. At that time, his wife found out his affair and wanted to sue for divorce. At the same time, Carrie knew that he had been married and it provided a chance to get a large sum of money., Hurst Wood got lost before the temptation and he took the money in the end. Legally, he is a thief. Morally, he has broken one of the ten commandments—thou shalt not steal. Before long, his life had a sudden turn, finally, he killed himself. He destroyed himself because he was totally controlled by his instictive desire and lost the morality.

5.3 Drouet’s desire for sex

Since man’s desire is one of animal instincts and the desire for the sex is useful for Drouet, Carrie holds him as “nothing evil”. Drouet was driven by her instinct desire of pursing woman and influenced by naturalism animalization.

If Carrie was full of the desire for materials, Hester Wood has the desire for power, then Drouet is full of the desire for sex. He considers the conquest of beautiful women as his power. He was attracted by Carrie her when he met the pretty Carrie He .He was under the control of his natural desire and started to pursuing women as before as if he needs to have a good breakfast every day. The conquest of Carrie meant his victory and could show his charm. So when Carrie finally moved to the house that Drouet rented for her, he was so excited that he specially invited his friend Hester Wood home to meet Carrie to show his ability. He said “How sweet the fruit is!” (Dreiser, 2008: 198) For the same reason, when Hurstwood slowly filled Carrie’s heart because of her emptiness, Drouet was hurt so deathly that he made a decision to leave Carrie. All this is not because he loved Carrie but mainly because he felt he had lost his face and felt he was not so charmful as Hurstwood.

However, the author spoke up for Drouet"s behaviors borrowing the mouth of the story-teller, and pointed out that Drouet pursued women not because of cold and evil mind, but driven by their natural desire, he considered it as a pleasure. But in the narrator"s opinion, For Drouet, the desire of pursuing woman was just as his sympathy for the poor, because he has an innate desire. Even a beggar caught his attention, and said to him “sir, I am going to death because of the hunger.” (Dreiser, 2008: 112) He was sure to offer some money to him. The author used instinct as a pretext to defend for him. Drouet followed his heart without any consideration. That is to say, he took it for granted that men should be driven by his instinct and the morality can be ignored.

6. Conclusion

Carrie became independent from dependent, rose to the pursuit of spirit from the pursuit for better material. It was her desire that made her sustenance to Hurst Wood and Drouet, trying to determine her self-value in the relationship with men. Facts have proved that it doesn’t work. Only through one’s own continuous efforts and pursuit can he reach the final satisfaction and improve the spiritual needs. In today’s commodity economy society, it is full of temptation of material everywhere. Many young people regard money as the only pursuit, just like many shadows of Carrie. In the numerous opportunities of getting rich, under the guide of city life, they come to prosperous metropolis from poor countries. Many people yield to the temptation of the material world and become dishonest and illegal. They complain about the environmental factors and genetic factors determining their fate and accuse the indifferent attitude of the society. People shouldn’t accept fate pessimistically. On the contrary, people should take positive attitude towards life, and strive to be the master of life.

When Sister Carrie saw a wealthy and live at ease, when she walks on Broadway, when she really close to the rich wives at home sister heart desires are being amplified, step by step. Sister Carrie"s desire in addition to the time of the environment, the influence of the people around her, consumption ideas about outside, still with her own vanity, bourgeois desires are closely related, the desire to promote her constantly buy new goods, consumer, to satisfy her vanity, enjoy the pleasure of luxury goods caused her value enhancement. And luxury goods, variety, this kind of consumption is endless, so Sister Carrie will never satisfy her situation, also is unable to realize her dream of happiness.

There is no doubt that Sister Carrie plays a very important role in naturalism and the history of American literature. This thesis analyzes the desire of the main characters in detail to explain that naturalism was relative to the tragedy of the main characters. What’s more, The naturalism in Sister Carrie needs to explore further. People in the novel are the microcosms of social life at that period. All of us should learn something from it. Never get lost in the desire and try to build up right values on life.

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