Theodore Dreiser
---The Path-breaker of
American Literature
鲁旭勃
Theodore
Dreiser (18711945)
A pioneer of naturalism
Dreiser has been a controversial figure in American
literary history. His works are powerful in portrayal
of the changing American life.
He showed a new way of presenting reality and
inspired the writers of the 1920s with courage and
insight. It is in Dreiser’s works that American
naturalism is said to have come of age.
The greatest chronicler of
American cities.
A pioneer of naturalism
In the history of American literature, he is the first
person who faithfully depicts the new American city
life without prejudice.
In his works, conventional morality is unimportant,
virtuous behavior having little to do with material
success and happiness.
He played an important role in introducing a new
realism and sexual candor into American fiction.
A pioneer of naturalism
Dreiser had an enormous influence on the
. generation that followed his.
resemble Dreiser in technique or material
John Steinbeck
Norman Mailer
William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway
Literary Innovation
1.His first novel, Sister Carrie has been called the
“greatest of all American urban novels.”
Sister Carrie is frequently regarded as a turning point in
American fiction. Firmly embedded in the realist tradition, the
book’s simple yet serious naturalistic outlook emphasizes that
human behavior results from instinct, self-interest, and social
pressure and not from any sense of ethical responsibility.
So this stance marks Sister Carrie as a departure from the
conventional literature of the period.
Literary Innovation
2.His powerful frankness
widens the social and sexual
range possible for literature in
America.
In the early 20th century, the morals and virtues
of the Victorian era still guided people’s actions.
The public was shocked that Dreiser’s characters
so openly participated in relationships.
Carrie uses sex to gain status for herself.
Literary Innovation
3. His novels are full of tragedies, serious subjects and
miserable side of the society.
Dreiser broke through the genteel tradition , revealed
the life of the lower class people and dared to expose
the vulgar and ugly side of the society.
It’s he that changes American Fiction style from the
Victorian and Howells-type timidity and gentleness to
honesty, boldness and passion for life.
Literary Innovation
4.He embraced social Darwinism. He learned to regard
man as merely an animal driven by greed in a
struggle for existence in which only the fittest
survive.
Nature, not social ideas, has formed Carrie. She
entrusts herself first to Drouet, then to Hurstwood.
Circumstances and her desires for a better life direct
her to the successful goal.
Literary Innovation
Carrie is, by nature, not a bad girl. She is a product of
the society, a realization of the theory that the fittest
survive.
If Carrie is the positive conviction of the theory that
the fittest survive, then Hurstwood is negative
evidence. His tragedy is the triumphs of the theory
that the fittest survive.