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1、On the Causes of Jennies Tragedy in Jennie Gerhardt专业：英语班级：09 姓名： ContentsIntroduction51 Influences Brought about by Social Transformation111. 1 Ethic Transmutation111. 2 Moral Confusion142 Causes of the Tragedy from the Perspective of Freuds Psychoanalysis192.1 The Viewpoint of Psychoanalysis192.2
2、Jennies Psychology213 Causes of the Tragedy from the Perspective of Darwinism253.1 Darwinist Analysis253.2 The Environment of Early 20thCentury314 Causes of the Tragedy from the Perspective of Feminism384.1 Feminist Analysis384.2 Jennies Feminist Thought40Conclusion44Acknowledgement47Bibliography48A
3、bstractIn the first half of the twentieth century, the American literature stepped onto a new stage, which is the golden time of the American literature. During these years, a lot of writers who flourished the literary world turned up. And American literature experienced an unprecedented booming per
4、iod in the history. At that time, Theodore Dreiser played an incomparable role in the literary world. He is not only the most outstanding writer in the twentieth century, but also the pioneer of American modern literature. In the history of American literature, he is the first one to describe the ne
5、w city life in American without any prejudice, which is the great contribution to American literature. Just because of this, he draws more and more attention of recent readers.Jennie Gerhard is Theodore Dreisers second novel, which brought him first true commercial success. It told us a story about
6、a poor girls miserable life at the end of 19th century. Since its publication in 1911, it was well received by critics. Many people have made a lot of analysis about the reason of Jennies tragedy. Since the researches of both domestic and abroad pay close attention on society and class, while the au
7、thor of the paper will analyze Jennies tragedy from Spiritual Analysis theory, Social-Darwinism and Feminism under the background of the special social transformation in America. At that time, because of social transition, the rapid economic development and rapid urbanization, there were a variety o
8、f social problems. In the prevailing social conditions, social ethic changes and moral confusion makes Jennies tragedy a social necessity. According to Freuds psychoanalysis theory, analyze Jennies psychological process. This is the origin of Jennies tragedy. Survival of the fittest was not only the
9、 core and the sole of Darwinism, but also applies to the Social-Darwinism, that is to say, every creature in the world must face all kinds of influences and challenges from inside and outside and those who couldnt adapt must be eliminated. Jennie is in the low status in the capital society, she coul
10、dnt be accepted by the upper class, and her final density must be abounded by the upper class. Take family as the most important thing, Jennie Gerhard has all of the typical traditional womens virtues-she was pure, kind and fable; she has no dependent social status but only has to depend on men. Dif
11、ferent from those new women who didnt comply with men and were independent in economy, the fate of Jennie Gerhard must be a tragedy. The thesis is divided into three parts to discuss the cause of Jennies tragedy by mainly applying the two theories above and discuss Dreisers writing features in Jenni
12、e Gerhard. The first part describes the specialty of the social transformation in which Jennie lives-on the way of rapid modernization, the social economy of Jennies time developed rapidly, so as the urbanization, but there are also many social problems such as social moral crisis and ethnical trans
13、mutation, while those are important reasons which led to Jennies tragedy. The second part is to explain Jennies tragedy by using the theory of Freuds psychoanalysis. Her psychological process, include desiring for material world, submitting to reality difficulties and imagining love and marriage. Th
14、ese internal factors make Jennies tragedy inevitable. The third part is to explain Jennies tragedy by applying the Social -Darwinism. The Social-Darwinisms core is “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest”. In The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, natural environment play an importan
15、t part in biological living. In Jennies life, because of her poor family, she struggled for the existence of her family unceasingly, but was hurt again and again. So social environment is one of the factors of Jennies tragedy. The last part will tell Jennies tragedy from the perspective of Feminism.
16、 From the novel, one fact can be recognized, thats women and men are unequal at Jennies time, especial for Jennie who was a traditional woman without social status, and different from those new women who required equality with men in every area. Traditional women were of flabbiness, and they suffere
17、d a lot from society, take the family as the only core of their lives and depend completely on men in economy. That was also the inevitable reason for Jennies tragedy. The social environments specialty, her psychology and personality, the influence of Social-Darwinism and Jennies own Feminism though
18、t are the key reasons for Jennies tragedy, her tragedy is the result of both the inner reason and the outer reason. Key words: Jennie Gerhard;tragedy;analysis摘 要二十世纪上半叶，美国文学揭开了一个新的时期，这是美国小说创作的黄金时代。这些年美国文学界群星璀璨，异彩纷呈，文学创作呈现出空前繁荣的景象。西奥多德莱赛作为最耀眼的作家在当时文学界异军突起。他既是二十世纪最杰出的作家，也是美国现代小说的先驱。在美国文学史上，他率先如实地描写了新的
19、美国城市生活，为美国文坛做出了巨大的贡献。正因为如此，他越来越多地引起现代读者的关注。珍妮姑娘是德莱赛的第二部小说，这本书也为作者带来了真正意义上的成功。它讲述了十九世纪末期一个善良女子珍妮的悲惨生活。自从1911年出版以来，珍妮姑娘受到评论界的广泛好评，很多人对珍妮姑娘的悲剧根源做出了大量的阐释。国内外对于珍妮姑娘的研究多关注于社会和阶级这一客观的外部因素，而本文将主要从弗洛伊德精神分析角度、社会达尔文主义角度对处于美国社会转型期这一特殊时期的珍妮姑娘的遭遇进行分析来阐释其悲剧形成的原因。由于当时社会转型、经济急速发展、城市化进程突飞猛进，社会存在着各种问题。在当时的社会状况下，社会伦理的改
20、变及道德混乱使得珍妮悲剧的发生具有社会必然性。社会达尔文主义依据达尔文理论的核心物竞天择、适者生存，阐述了珍妮姑娘作为资产阶级社会中的弱者，不会为上层社会所接受，其最终命运必定是被上层社会所抛弃。以家庭为中心的珍妮姑娘身上具有传统女性的一切特征纯洁、善良、软弱、没有独立的社会地位、一味地依赖男人. 而这些与那些不依靠于男人，经济上独立的新女性是截然不同的,珍妮的命运注定只能以悲剧收场。本论文将主要运用以上三个理论来讨论珍妮姑娘的悲剧成因，并将讨论珍妮姑娘的深层意义。本论文共分为四个部分来分析珍妮的悲剧成因。第一部分阐述了当时正处于美国社会转型期的特殊性在急速的现代化进程中，珍妮所在的社会经济高
21、速发展，城市化进程异常繁荣，同时也带来了许多社会问题，其中的社会伦理嬗变和道德混乱使得珍妮悲剧的发生具有不可避免的社会必然性。第二部分运用弗洛伊德精神分析理论来解释其悲剧的成因。深入分析珍妮的心理过程，包括她对物质生活的渴望，对现实困难的妥协和对爱情与婚姻的幻想。这些内在的因素致使珍妮的悲剧不可避免。第三部分运用社会达尔文主义来其解释悲剧成因。社会达尔文主义对珍妮悲剧的影响重大，它的核心理论同达尔文主义一样，都是讲的“生存斗争，适者生存”。从物种起源一书中，我们得知自然环境对生物的生存及发展起着重要的作用。珍妮出身贫寒，但是她为了自己及家人的生存，不断地与外界环境作斗争，却一次一次地受到伤害，
22、从而可以得知社会环境是导致珍妮悲剧的一个重要因素第四部分从女性主义角度来分析珍妮的悲剧成因。从小说中可以得知，在当时的社会，男女地位极不平等，尤其是像珍妮这样出身贫寒且没有社会地位的传统女性与那些刚刚兴起的要求各方面与男性平等的新女性形象截然不同。具有传统女性特征的珍妮性格懦弱，逆来顺受，生活中以家庭为中心，经济上完全依赖男性，在社会中处于极其不利的地位，这也是造成珍妮悲剧不可避免的因素。社会转型期的特殊性、珍妮错误的心理行为，社会达尔文主义的影响及珍妮自身的女性主义思想都是珍妮悲剧的决定性因素，她的悲惨命运是内在因素与外在因素共同影响的结果。关键词：珍妮姑娘；悲剧；分析Introductio
23、n Regarded as one of the pre-eminent American novelists of the first half of the twentieth-century, Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) draws more and more attention of recent readers. Born in Indiana in 1871, Dreiser was the ninth child of the thirteen children in the family. His parents emigrated from Ge
24、rmany to America and his childhood was spent in extreme misery. After his fathers wool mill was destroyed by fire, Dreisers father was impaired and the whole family fell into poverty. Without steady income to make body and soul together, the family was forced to move constantly from town to town, wh
25、ile his father could hardly keep a job for long because he was always in debt. Seeing no hope in life, his father converted to Christianity to avoid the countless troubles and to seek serenity in God. Therefore the responsibility of supporting so many children was taken by his mother. She worked har
26、d to bring up her children, to prevent them from suffering cold and hunger. In his novel, Jennie Gerhardt, Dreiser depicted his mother and father in the portraits of Mrs. Gerhardt and Old Gerhardt. Dreisers harsh own experience of poverty and his early yearning for wealth and success later became do
27、minant themes in his novels. And the misadventures of his brothers and sisters in early adult life gave him additional material on which to base his characters. The life experience of one of his sister named Mame later became his raw material to create his work Jennie Gerhardt. As far as such a fami
28、ly background is concerned, Theodore Dreiser scarcely had a sense of security from an early age. Quite a lot of his novels mirror his own life experiences. In his novels, he mainly deals with social problems and with characters who struggle to survive. The reader can feel that he was a man who was u
29、tterly faithful to his own vision of life. Like what Maxwell Geiswar expressed, “Theodore Dreiser is the most distinguished member of the whole group of Modern American novelists. He was a realist Yes, he, partly through his own innocence, perhaps, and early origins, told the truth about life when h
30、e could discover it. 1 Probably no one else in our literature has had such a direct and intimate feelings for the common forms of experience, pleasant and disgraceful. What gave his work its remarkable texture, its glamour, really was his simple sense of the variety and mystery of life on all its le
31、vels.” At fifteen, he left for Chicago alone to make a living , taking up various kinds of odd jobs like washing dishes, driving carriages etc. He was once financed by one of his teachers to study in Indiana University, but the school life bored him and he returned back to Chicago a year later. He w
32、orked as an apprentice with several journals and newspapers, which provided him with adequate training and experience in preparing for his literary writing. By working with these news agencies, he could have the opportunity to keenly observe the real American life at the time the rich indulging in s
33、eeking pleasures while the poor striving for survival. In his fictions, Dreiser expressed his deeply sympathy with those who lack the means to satisfy their desire for things and needs that might seem trivial and even tawdry to others but to them constitute happiness and even beauty. To be poor, Dre
34、iser realized meant not merely an inability to satisfy material needs but an emotional and a spiritual stifling and deprivation. He experience America life.Dreiser portrayed the world of his fiction with truth; he powered the modern world of commerce and mechanization; he portrayed the dismal depers
35、onalization of the individual which results from urbanization and intensifying societal pressure to conform; he drew us frankly and primly as a nation of status-seeker. 2 Dreiser believed that all life is at the bottom tragedy, he found it difficult to express exactly what constitutes life. Life was
36、 dominated by invincible material forces, and of these the drives for power, money and sex were primary. In this sense, desire for what life appears to offer as self-fulfillment good clothes, a fine apartment, money to spend becomes the motive force for Dreisers fictional figures, driving them eithe
37、r to a form of success, as with Carrie in Sister Carrie or to tragedy, as with Jennie in Jennie Gerhardt. One of Dreisers favorite devices was the use of contrast between the rich and the poor, the power broker and the helpless. When he wrote about “raw” experiences of life on his earlier works, he
38、considered the economic society has an important impact on the life of his created people, which will be seen home in Jennie Gerhardt .Dreiser began his work on Jennie Gerhardt since January 1901. As Sister Carrie, his first notable fiction which he had been based on the experiences of his sister Em
39、ma, he would now write a novel about the early life of another of his sisters, Mame. Though he initially made some progresses and though a small publisher had agreed to subsidize its composition, he soon bogged down and had to put it aside because of the failure of Sister Carrie to achieve popular s
40、uccess which soon affected his ability to write. Dreiser did not complete it until the year of 1910. The novel was read in manuscript by several friends, who suggested changes for its conclusion that Dreiser adopted. The book was accepted by Harpers in April 1911 for publication in the fall. The nov
41、el belongs to the realistic category, featured ordinary people in familiar, everyday contemporary circumstances. 3 After his first novel Sister Carrie was published, Dreiser faced all kinds of attacks, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, artistic isolation and commercial seduction. Since at that ti
42、me he was thought of as “He simply had no personal style at all. Instead he absorbed the highly detailed, prolix, occasionally ornate but usually lucid magazine style the Mauve Decade and employed it as an impersonal instrument in the fashioning of his fiction.” 4 But he endured all these and stuck
43、to writing and survived to be accepted and became famous later, as with Jennie Gerhardt followed which had received an ambivalent reception, since many reviewers were attracted by the protagonists essential purity despite the “unsavory” character of her career. No wonder the 1930 Nobel Prize winner
44、in literature, also the first American who earned the honor, Sinclair Luis, believed that Theodore Drieser should be awarded the prize, since he had suffered so much before his works gained such fame and popularity. After Jennie Gerhardt , Dreiser returned to an active career as a writer with a burs
45、t of energy that lasted fifteen years during which he created his famous trilogy The Financier, which was based on the life of the American transportation magnate Charles T. Jerkes, in 1912, The Titan, which showed the influence of the evolutionary ideas of Spencer, in early 1914, The Genius, a semi
46、autobiographical, in 1915 and his one of notable fictions An American Tragedy, in 1925, etc.Jennie Gerhardt tells the story about a young girl who has two illicit sexual relationships with two wealthy men from the upper class. Jennie is the daughter of a large and impoverished German immigrant famil
47、y living in Columbus, Ohio, where she and her mother are employed as cleaner in a local hotel. George Brander, a middle-aged bachelor and U.S. Senator who lives in the hotel, is deeply attracted by Jennies youth and purity and seeks to aid her and her family. In return, Jennie is attracted by Brande
48、rs position and status. Driven by their respective personal needs, they have a love affair. As a result, Jennie becomes pregnant by Brander, who dies suddenly of a heart attack before he can fulfill his promise of marrying her. Jennies father, a devout Lutheran, enraged by such a disgraceful thing, which brings scandal to the family, demands that she leave home. And she has no choice but to obey her father and moves to Cleveland with her illegitimate child Vesta, where she finds employment as a maid at a well-to-do family. There she meets Lester Kane who is from a wealthy
