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1、Theodore Dreiser(1871-1945),American author,outstanding representative of naturalism,whose novels depict real-life subjects in a harsh light,Life:,1.Dreiser was born in Indiana,the ninth child of German-speaking parents.2.His childhood was spent in extreme poverty.3.After some months at Indiana Univ
2、ersity,he became a reporter on the Chicago Globe before arriving in New York in 1894.4.His first novel,Sister Carrie,was rejected because of his relentless honesty in presenting the true nature of American life.5.The young author felt so depressed by“a decades delay”in the words of Larzer Ziffin soc
3、ial recognition that he was said to have walked by the East River at the turn of the century,seriously committing suicide.,6.He faced every form of attack that a serious artist could encounter misunderstanding,misrepresentation,artistic isolation and commercial seduction.But he survived to lead the
4、rebellion of the 1900s.7.Dreiser died of heart failure on December 28,1945,before completing the last chapter of The Stoic.8.Dreiser was buried in Hollywoods Forest Lawn Cemetery on January 3,1946.,The book was initially rejected by many publishers on the grounds that is was immoral.Indeed,Harper Br
5、others,the first publisher to see the book,rejected it by saying it was not,sufficiently delicate to depict without offense to the reader the continued illicit relations of the heroine.Finally Doubleday and Company published the book in order to fulfill their contract,but Frank Doubleday refused to
6、promote the book.As a result,it sold less than seven hundred copies and Dreiser received a reputation as a naturalist-barbarian.,Sister Carrie,published in 1900,is one of the best-known story of American Dream,tracing the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G.W.Hurstwood.,The st
7、ory of Sister Carrie,The three different worlds in which Sister Carrie moves:Her sisters working-class existenceHer life with Drouet in ChicagoHer life with Hurstwood in New YorkThe tragedy of CarrieA feather in the wind,she is totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend,still less to say c
8、ontrol.The tragedy of Hurstwood Dreisers portrait is an authentic one of the important modern man unfit to survive,The theme in Sister Carrie,a novel written by Theodore Dreiser,is materialism.The theme is primarily personified through Carrie with her desire for a fine home,clothes and everything el
9、se money can buy.,Materialism,including the desire for money,is an important theme in Sister Carrie.The materialism is shown mostly through Carries character but also through Hurstwood,a man with a respectable life and money,who still wants more and for that reason commits a crime.The city in itself
10、 is also a place of materialism,it is a place that offers all kinds of amusements,pleasures and things to buy,but to participate in what the city has to offer one has to have money.,Evaluation,1.Dreiser has been a controversial figure in American literary history.2.His works are powerful in their po
11、rtrayal of the changing American life,but his style is considered crude.3.It is in Dreisers works that American naturalism is said to have come of age.,The theme of Dreisers Novels:,A major theme is:men and women will,according to their place in society,talent and temperament,seek to achieve the ful
12、fillment of such desires as sexual gratification,power and materialism.To put it in another way,the forces ranged against an individual are so strong that he or she can either yield to them or be destroyed by them.A key word in Dreiser:determinism.This theme is conveyed,to a large extent,through his
13、 openness about sexuality(although he is not explicit and graphic)and through his well-portrayed women characters.,Dreisers position,Dreiser has been called the“Wheelhouse of American naturalism”and”chief spokesman for the realistic novel”,and“a profound and prescient critic of debased Americna valu
14、es”His fiction records the“coarse and the vulgar and the cruel and the terrible”in life in defiance of the genteel and evasive current literatuare,Determinism:,It refers to the belief or theory that human actions and events are controlled by and result from causes that determine them.Karl Marx:mans
15、economic environmentCharles Darwin:scientific laws governing evolutionSigmun Freud:human unconsciousReligious and theologians:the will of a god or godsExistentialism,invests human being with direct control over and responsibility for their lives.,Dreisers style,Dreiser is good at employing the journ
16、alistic method of reiteration to burn a central impression into the readers mind.His interest in painting is reflected in his taste for word-pictures.Sharp contrast,truth in color,and movement in outline.Here lies the power and permanence that have made Dreiser one of Americas foremost novelist.,Maj
17、or Features of Dreisers writing:,As a naturalistic writer,Drerser stressed determinism in his novels which deal with everyday life,often with its sordid side.As an naturalist,he developed the capacity for photographic and relentless observation,thereby truthfully reflecting the society and people of his time.His narrative method is natural and free from artifice.,
