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1、Inspired by Innovation and Dream Innovation and Dream杨玉娟 青海师范大学外语系【Abstract】The thesis is to attempt to discover the relationship between Carries American dream and American social innvoation by the end of 19th century. The purpose is to discuss Carries dream-searching while she stepped up to the pe
2、ak of her life and career.【Key words】Sister Carrie Innovation American dream【中图分类号】G642 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】10069682（2009）06011903Sister Carrie was the masterpiece of Thedore Dreiser, the well-known American naturalism writer. When it came to be published, it caused a great disturbance in the American li
3、terature for its “immoral”. Through depicting a story about how a country girl became a famous Broadway star, it revealed the real American society and life in a shocking way. Moreover, it left many readers with an overriding impression that reflected profound transformations in American life in the
4、 late 19th century.Social Innovation“From the founding of the U.S. through the early 19th century, the economy had been primarily agricultural, with the individual household the center of production.”1Individual families consumed, for the most part, only what they could themselves produce. Contrary
5、to the model of stay-at-home wife and mother associated with the Victorian era through much of the 20th century, in the early economy, the labor of women was central. “Women canned the family crops, spun cloth and crafted it into clothing and linens, made soaps and candles, and produced other essent
6、ial goods.”2The transition from an agricultural economy centered in the family to an industrial order characterized by managerial capitalism depended on the development of factories throughout the 19th century. Factories demanded centralized labor, large groups of unrelated people leaving the home a
7、nd working under one roof. With this shift, work necessarily moved outside the home, and as that happened, the meaning of the family and the home also changed. The story of Sister Carrie just took place in this factory-based capitalist economy, highlighting its effects on individuals and families. S
8、weeping economic change marked the period from the Civil War to the close of the 19th century. “This transformation depended not only upon the factory system and a labor force centralized in cities, but also on a vast infrastructure of technology as well as communications and financial systems.”3“On
9、e of the most important changes was the transformation of the economy from being fueled by production to being driven by consumption.”4This shift was visible everywhere. It was not merely hunger, but taste, which sought gratification in food; in clothes people sought not merely comfort, but adornmen
10、t; the rude shelter becomes a house.Unbounded consumption thrived especially in citiesthe booming city of Chicago and the established metropolis of New Yorkare ideal locations for conspicuous consumption. People turned to be modern spending patterns that had less to do with satisfying desire than wi
11、th advertising status. Such consumption needed to be conspicuously on display. “Factory production, mass distribution, and conspicuous consumption in the modern city all helped create unprecedented fortunes in the late 19th century.”5According to this 19th century ideal（which still has many advocate
12、s）, womans proper “sphere” in the home allowed her to develop her innate nurturing tendencies while exercising her influence in an appropriate fashion: by directing the moral development of her children and husband. Correspondingly, mans “sphere” was the public world, particularly the marketplace, w
13、here his competitive tendencies could be channelled to benefit his family and society as a whole. As historian Barbara Welter described the 19th century ideal for the white middle class, the “Tru34 e Woman” was expected to be pious, pure, domestic, and submissive. However a competing model for femin
14、inity emerged in the U.S. around the 1880s. “The New Woman typically had a career and was economically independent. Frequently New Women aligned themselves with members of their own sex （in partnerships that were not necessarily romantic）rather than in conventional marriages.”6 Change in the social
15、position of either gender often created a predicament for the other. This was certainly the case as the New Woman came on the scene, for she had threatened men in ways her mother never did.Carries Dream-SearchingCapitalism has made great economic development from the late 19th century to the beginni
16、ng of the 20th century. During that period, America was facing social transformation: urban development, prosperous market and growing economy; all those changes brought people with new opportunity and challenge. “Female were still restricted and discriminated in America although it always stated fr
17、eedom and equality between two sexes. Female not only had no political rights, but also could not handle all kinds of social affairs related with them.”7The society only accepted and admitted the strong under this prosperous and economic condition. On the other hand, male could be forgiven while mak
18、ing mistakes because men were men. They were still the strong and cosset of the society. However, for female, it was another pair of shoes. If women lost their virtue, they would be certainly punished and deserted by the society because they were the incarnation of purity and loftiness, they could n
19、ot make any mistake. If they did lose virtue, they must pay a high price for it, even death.Meanwhile, progressive reform flourished widespread, which centered on solving political corruption, inequality of economic opportunity as well as decrease of moral criterion that attracted the whole world. P
20、eoples mind and ideal also changed with that. “Especially for female, they started to think about themselves, such as their identity, status, value and desire. They began to ask for the same consideration and right as male in all aspects of the social life, and also went outside to struggle for bett
21、er life, as well as to achieve their self-realization.”8Therefore, at the beginning of the 20th century, female life was quite different from their mother generation; many of them lived in urban flats and enjoyed certain independence in economy and society; some of them even smoked, drank, played ca
22、rds and made up. Thanks to lots of new inventions and products on housekeeping as well as mushrooming factories, many women had opportunities to go outside and to work as men. Moreover, they had equal rights as men to watch play and entertain themselves.As for individual, the“American Dream”meant nu
23、merous individual struggle, compassion and tear. The eighteen years old Carrie was a beautiful and naive girl who went Chicago with various fantasies in her mind, hoping to have a better and happier life there. She was poorly educated and the same as the other people who wanted to make a living in t
24、he big city, but had no idea about the urban life. She was immature and easily influenced by others. “When a gril leaves her hometown at eighteen, she doe one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes
25、worse.”（Sister Carrie 1）On the train to Chicago, she was deeply attracted and fantasized by her conversation with Drouet, dreaming that she would enjoy the happiness brought by her hard-working there. Her first standpoint was to grasp a chance to find a job and to be independent and rich in material. However, she was also afraid of the new environment she would confront with. “With her sister she as much alone, a lone figure in a tossing, toughtless sea.”（Sister Carrie 8）This was the first beginning of her dream-searching process.However, after she saw her sis34
