Chicago Literary Renaissance  1.  1. the time span  2.  2. the leading writers  3.  3. the representative masterpieces  4.  4. the purposes  5.  5. Influences Chicago Hotels – Renaissance Hotel

1. 1. time span  the flourishing of literary activity in Chicago  during the period from approximately 1912 to 1925

2. 2. the leading writers  Theodore Dreiser, 德莱塞  Sherwood Anderson, 安德森  Edgar Lee Masters, 马斯特斯  Carl Sandburg, 桑德堡  Upton Sinclair, 辛克莱

 Most of these writers were  originally from small Middle Western towns  deeply affected by the Regionalism of the 1890s

3. 3. representative masterpieces Novels  Sherwood Anderson: Winesburg, Ohio  安德森：《小镇畸人》  Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie  德莱塞：《嘉莉妹妹》  Upton Sinclair: The Jungle  辛克莱：《屠场》

Poetry Poetry  Masters: Spoon River Anthology  马斯特斯：《匙河集》  Carl Sandburg: Chicago Poems  桑德堡：《芝加哥诗集》

4. 4. the purposes  realistically depicted the urban environment  lamented  the loss of traditional rural values in the increasingly industrialized and materialistic American society  the failure of the romantic promise  that hard work would automatically bring material and spiritual rewards

5. 5. Influences  Carla Cappetti:  the Chicago Renaissance “brought the world to Chicago and Chicago to the world”.  H. L. Mencken:  Chicago and its hinterland as “the Literary Capital of the United States.”

Herman Theodore Dreiser  1.life  2.works  3.point of view  4.Sister Carrie  5.Style

 The leader of American Naturalism  "American writing, before and after Dreiser's time, differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin." —H. L. Mencken

I. I. Life  Birthday: Aug. 27, 1871  Hometown: Terre Haute, Ind., U.S.  the 12th of 13 children (the 9th of the 10 surviving)  of a German Catholic immigrant

 a large family  growing up poor  difficult to make a living  moved to Indiana in 1867  deeply into debt  bought a woolen mill that seemed promising  but destroyed in 1869 fire

 a year at Indiana University  became a newspaper reporter in 1892  He took pessimistic view of human helplessness by  reading especially of T. Huxley & Herbert Spencer  personal experiences

 plunged into depression by the initial failure of his first novel, Sister Carrie (1900)  recovered and achieved financial success as editor in several magazines  forced to resign in 1910 because of his involvement with an assistant’s daughter.

 In 1925 published An American Tragedy.  Based on a celebrated murder case, it brought him a degree of critical and commercial success he had never before attained.

 Though a visit to the Soviet Union had left him skeptical about communism, the Great Depression caused him to reconsider his opposition.

 For many years he supported American communists and at the evening of his life he joined Communist Party USA (1945).  He died December 28, 1945 in Hollywood, aged 74.

II. II. Points of view  Theodore Dreiser  believed in evolutionary & materialistic determinism  gave these ideas powerful expression

1. Against Materialism HHe found that tthe American values were materialistic to the core.

2. 2. Social Darwinism  He learned to regard man as merely an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the “fittest”, the most ruthless, survive.

3. 3. Pessimistic views  Life is a “game” or a jungle struggle  Man is a mere pawn  with no power whatever to assert his will  being “a waif and an interloper in Nature”

4. 4. No free will  No one is ethically free  Everything is determined by  a complex of internal chemisms ( 化学变化 )  the forces of social pressure.

III. III. Major Works Sister Carrie, 1900 《嘉丽妹妹》 his first novel Jennie Gerhardt, 1911 《珍妮姑娘》 his 2nd novel

 “Trilogy of Desire”:  The Financier, 1912 《金融家》  The Titan, 1914 《巨人》  The Stoic, 1947 《斯多噶》

 The Genius, 《天才》  An American Tragedy (1925) 《美国的悲剧》  his masterpiece  the finest of Dreiser's books  his first commercial success

IV. Sister Carrie Sister Carrie Jennie Gerhardt

 regarded as a landmark in the development of American realism  Considered immoral in its frank depiction of basic desires  withheld by its publisher until Introduction

2. 2. Major characters  Caroline Meeber: a young woman from rural Wisconsin; the protagonist.  George W. Hurstwood: a well-to- do, sophisticated man

3. 3. The themes  1) the social Darwinism:  the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society  2) American Dream  Each of Dreiser’s characters in Sister Carrie search for their own “American Dreams”

 3) Materialism, including the desire for money  4) Success and failure  5) Loss of morality  6) The Morals of Money  7) Cost of Living  8) Betrayal

3. 3. The character analysis of Carrie  She follows the right direction to  a pursuit of the American dream  the circumstances  her desire for a better life direct to the successful goal

 But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely.  In essence, she is  a product of the society  a realization of the theory of the survival of the fittest

 According to the prevailing double standard of sexual morality, the woman was supposed to be punished, not the man.

 Sister Carrie best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct and chance.

 To Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh.  She is alone and helpless.  She moves along like a mechanism driven by desire.

 She catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence, opportunities  She makes use of first Droust, and then of Hurstwood.

 A feather in the wind, she totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend, still less to say control.

 The famous picture of Carrie sitting in a rocking chair in her room in the evening, rocking back and forth.  This is a picture of Carrier’s drifting with the tide.

 She has no control, no freedom of will.  Then there is the tragedy of Hurstwood.  Here Spenser’s influence is seen at its most powerful.

3. 3. The character analysis of Hurstwood  He is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest:  He is still conventional.  He can not throw away the social morals.  He is not fitted to live in New York.

 In this novel, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards.

 Hurstwood can not help himself in his relationship with Sister Carrie.  No respectable job, no handsome income, nothing could overcome his biological need and stop him from returning, to savage, atavistic unreason.

 He is the impotent modern man unfit to survive.  He hovers between being a man and a beast in his behavior.

An American Tragedy  a realist epic of 1925  his greatest, best known work  based on the highly publicized 1906 murder trial of a young New York man

 Main plot: a poor young man’s futile effort to achieve social and financial success; the attempt ends in his execution for murder.

Main Characters  Protagonist:  Clyde Griffiths  Antagonist:  Environmental, Sociological, Psychological, and Economic Forces Working Against Clyde

 hero: Clyde Griffiths  Son of poor Protestant evangelists who move from city to city to preach the Gospel.

 Clyde grows up despising his lot in life and desiring money, fashionable clothes, pretty women, recognition, and admission to the social circles of the high and mighty.

 Only one thing blocks their marriage: Clyde has made a factory girl pregnant.  Alone with the pregnant girl in a boat on a lake, he plots to murder her

 but at last he loses his nerve  nevertheless, there is an accident; she drowns  he later pays with his life.

 The novel traces his movements as he seeks his dreams—and ends up in a nightmare.  Dreiser describes him as having “a well-cut nose, high white forehead, wavy, glossy, black hair, eyes that were black and rather melancholy at times.”

Samuel Griffiths  Clyde's wealthy uncle.  After running into Clyde in Chicago, he takes a liking to him and gives Clyde a job in his factory in eastern New York.

Roberta Alden  Daughter of a farmer, and worker in the factory of Samuel Griffiths.  Clyde dates and impregnates her even though he does not love her.

Sondra Finchley  Beautiful, upper-class young woman who is a friend of the Samuel Griffiths family.  She becomes involved with Clyde.

Theme 1. Social Darwinism:  No man can escape from the Social Darwinism  humans’ fates are determined by  heredity  environments  character  living background

 2. Desire:  One is driven, cheated and defeated by his desire.

 Living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires.  One of the desires is money, another is sex.

3. The American Dream as Illusion  No one can achieve success in such a hostile society and such a hostile age.  The American Dream is  a lie  the Impossible Dream

 The idea of the American Dream:  All Americans have the opportunity to improve themselves economically and socially.  A person's circumstances at birth place no limit on his or her potential.  people can make of themselves whatever they choose and rise as high as they are willing to climb.

 Dreiser, however, demonstrated in his 1925 novel that for many Americans the dream of social, financial, or another form of success never comes true.  Too many forces work against them: economic conditions, prejudice, lack of the right educational or employment opportunities, caprice.

 Thoreau observed in the nineteenth century, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”.  Clyde Griffiths was quietly desperate and failed to achieve his dream.  People like Clyde Griffiths continue to struggle in today's society.

 4. If there is a villain, it is society.  The book is genuinely tragic: Clyde is not villain but victim.

 5. One man’s losing struggle against forces that shape human destiny

 According to Theodore Dreiser and other writers of naturalism, the destiny of a human being results from hereditary, environmental, economic, social, and fatalistic forces that act upon him.

 Clyde Griffiths attempts to break free of these forces but fails.  In Clyde’s case, these forces include, specifically, mental and physical traits that he inherited at birth, the surroundings in which he grew up, the financial status and lower-class background of his family, and happenstance.

Style of Dreiser  not polished  very serious and well calculated to achieve the thematic ends he sought.  more inclusive ( 包容所有的 ) and less selective ( 精心选择的 )  massive detailed descriptions of characters and events.

Shortcomings 1) Without good structure 2) Deficient characterization 3) Lack in imagination 4) Journalistic method 5) Techniques in painting

 Edmund Wilson: Dreiser commands our respect; but the truth is he writes so badly that it is almost impossible to read him.  F. R. Leavis: Dreiser wrote as if he did not have a native language

Achievement  Considered by many as the leader of Naturalism in American writing  remembered for his stinging criticism  of the genteel tradition  of what Howells described as the “smiling aspects of life” typifying America

 In his fiction, Dreiser deals with social problems and with characters who struggle to survive.  His sympathetic treatment of a "morally loose" woman in Sister Carrie was called immoral and he suffered at the hands of publishers.

One of Dreiser's favorite fictional devices was the use of contrast between  the rich and the poor  the urbane and the unsophisticated  the power brokers and the helpless

 The effect of Darwinist idea of “survival of the fittest” was shattering.  It is not surprising to find in Dreiser’s fiction a world of jungle, where “killed or to be killed” was the law.

北京第二外国语大学 2006 年文学专业 综合考试 1 卷  ( ) 13. The novel describes the struggle of a young country girl, half aware of her powers, to protect herself against the cunning wiles of the capitalist society. A. Tess of the D'Urbervilles B. Pride and Prejudice C. The Purple Color D. Sister Carrie

北京师范大学 2003 年《英美文学》  19. ______ was the great original of modern American naturalism, and his work _____ published appropriately as the century turned, is an ambitious novel that merged American innocence and deep social experience.