• Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle in which man, is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with no power whatevemost all of his main characters are based on the real people.
✓ Vivid description of environment settings and social background.
• 3. His novels are full of tragedies, serious subjects and miserable side of the society.
• Later in 1892, he began his career as a reporter, first with the Chicago Globe, and then with several other newspapers.
• Since 1893, he began to write, first wrote short stories, and then long novels.
• His first novel, Sister Carrie, was rejected many times because of his relentless honesty in presenting the true nature of American life.
• In his later life, he turned to Communism. In 1945, he joined the Communist Party of America.
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser （1871-1945）
• Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1871. • As the ninth child of German immigrants, he
experienced considerable poverty while a child and at the age of fifteen was forced to leave home in search of work. • With the help from a sympathetic high school teacher, he spent the year 1889-1890 at the University of Indiana. • He acquired his real education from direct personal experience and from independent reading and thinking.
• Social Darwinism had a determining effect on his outlook and personal experiences led him to a pessimistic view of human helplessness in the face of instinct and social forces.
✓ His characters can’t assert their will against natural and economic forces.
• 2. He developed the capacity for photographic and relentless observation, thereby truthfully reflecting the society and people of his time and making his novels very believable and convincing.
✓ 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. (subject matter)
• No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internal chemisms and by the forces of social pressure.
Writing Features
• 1. As a naturalistic writer, Dreiser stressed determinism in his novels.
《嘉莉妹妹》 《珍妮姑娘》 《金融家》 《巨人》 《斯多葛》 《天才》 《美国悲剧》 《德莱赛看俄国》
Point of view
• He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. 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.
Works
• Sister Carrie (1900) • Jennie Gerhardt (1911) • The Financier (1912) • The Titan (1914) • The Stoic (posthumously 1947) • The Genius (1915) • An American Tragedy (1925) • Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928)