On Naturalism in Sister Carrie 论《嘉莉妹妹》中的自然主义.doc

On Naturalism in Sister Carrie 论《嘉莉妹妹》中的自然主义 [摘要] 西奥多·德莱塞是美国最伟大的自然主义作家之一。他的第一部小说《嘉莉妹妹》作为一部伟大的艺术作品为现代文学的发展竖立了一个重要的里程碑，而小说中自然主义的运用则为小说的成功奠定了基础。本文旨在从环境，机遇和遗传三个方面来探讨小说中的自然主义特色。 [关键词] 西奥多·德莱塞 自然主义 环境 机遇 遗传 Abstract: Theodore Dreiser is one of America’s greatest naturalist writers. Naturalism contributes a lot to the success of his first novel Sister Carrie, which is both a major work of art and an important landmark in the development of literary modernism. This paper aims to discuss the naturalistic features in Sister Carrie mainly from three aspects: environmental factors, chances and hereditary factors. Key words: Theodore Dreiser; naturalism; environment; chance; hereditary factor 1 Introduction Theodore Dreiser is a representative American naturalist writer. His frank discussion and celebration of sex are new and shocking to the reading public, and he opens a new ground of American naturalism. “The revival of naturalism in the 1930s enthroned Dreiser as the guide and pioneer for the latter-day naturalists such as James T. Farrell, John O’Hara, and John Dos Passes, for it is in Dreiser’s works that American naturalism is said to have come to age” (常耀信,2003:148). Apart from Hemingway and Faulkner, Dreiser is also regarded as one of the three greatest novelists in America after World War I. In Sinclair Lewis’ Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, he highly praised Dreiser and pointed out that it was Dreiser rather than he himself that deserved the prize, “Dreiser more than any other man, marching alone, usually unappreciated, often hated, has cleared the trail from Victorian and Howellsian timidity and gentility in American fiction to honesty and boldness and passion of life. Without his pioneering, I doubt if any of us could, unless we liked to be sent to jail, seek to express life and beauty and terror” (钱青,1997:117). Actually, he expressed a widespread feeling in American literary community. Dreiser was the twelfth children of German immigrants and grew up in pover