Analysis of Carrie as a Materialist According to the Naturalism inSister Carrie.Abstract：In the masterpiece Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser tells a story of Carrie’s rise from a poor country girl to Broadway star. In the novel, Dreiser uses lots of words to describe the psychology of Carrie from the satisfaction of basic life to the realization of self-development. This thesis aims to analysis the influence of naturalism on the main character Carrie in the road of desire. In the way of her development, th ere are two kinds of people: one is Carrie’s sister and the other is Drouet and Hurstwood, give Carrie the chance to fashion her ideal ego and be a successful actress. The former one stands for the poverty. In there, Carrie is driven by basic needs for survival and physiological necessities. The later one lets Carrie know she should realize her value but not to depend on man. The author finally indicates that in the survival of the fittest world people who industriously adapt to the society can live longer and better.Key Words: naturalism; Theodore Dreiser; Carrie; desire通过自然主义分析《嘉莉妹妹》中嘉莉这一物质主义形象摘要：西奥多德莱赛在他的杰作《嘉莉妹妹》中讲述了一位农村女孩到城市谋生最后成为百老汇名演员的故事。

在这部小说中，德莱赛用了大量笔墨来描写嘉莉最初对基本生活的满足到最后追求自我完善的过程。

本文旨在分析自然主义对嘉莉“追求道路”上的影响。

在这个过程中，有两种人给了嘉莉自我完善和成为名演员这个机会：一类姐姐明妮一家，另一类是德鲁埃和赫斯特伍德。

前者代表贫困，在姐姐家里，嘉莉被生活所迫。

而后者让嘉莉意识到她必须实现自己的价值而不是依赖男人。

作者还指出在这个优胜劣汰的世界里，谁能努力地适应这个社会，谁就能活得更长，活的更好。

关键词：自然主义；西奥多德莱赛；嘉莉；欲望Table of contents1. Introduction (1)1.1 Literature review (1)1.2 My purpose of the paper (3)2. Analysis of Carri e’s life (4)2.1Busy about Living (4)2.1.1Bear the rude insult………………………………………………...4.2.1.2Lower payment (5)2.1.3Brother-in-law’s cold attitude (6)2.2To Chase Better Life (7)2.2.1New life with Druoet (7)2.2.2New life with Hurstwood (8)2.3Carrie’s New Career as a Performer (9)2.3.1The reason she abandoned her husband (9)2.3.2Dissatisfaction about her current situation (10)3. The Final Fate of Carrie……………………………………………….…………1. IntroductionAmerican naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality or to human existence. Theodore Dreiser was deeply influenced by Darwinism and Spencer’s evolutionism. He believed that we live in a world composed of matter in motion: such matter makes up the natural process, which is both repeatable and have describable in scientific terms. Spenser said that nature symbolically reflected its inner meaning, so that to read the universe was to read the unfolding of nature and to understand the correspondences that existed between man and the animal world. In the works of Dreiser, American society is a world where people struggled. He totally denied the existence and the influence of morals. He thought in the life, there is no aim, no criterion. Only the survival itself is the finally target. So all morals standard is needless and all fantasy is ridiculous. People’s action is totally controlled by “nature”. According to Spencer’s evolutionism that he thought human beings just are animals without free willing. The living world is a purely physical and mechanistic world. Only the survival and development are the important in the survival of the fittest world (Pizer 65).Theodore Dreiser is the greatest naturalist writer in 20th contrary. His novel Sister Carrie is the one of his masterpiece which has significant meaning in America literature history. But this novel and the main character Carrie are criticized in many different ways. At the beginning of the publishment of this novel, Carrie is blamed as a person who betrays her spirit and body, and abandons her morals. The issues Sister Carrie raised are the typical reflections of the American naturalism (Liu 138). When Dreiser submitted the manuscript to a publisher it was rejected because it was thought likely to offend “the feminine readers who control the destinies of so many works.”Not until 1907, when Sister Carrie was reissued, did it finally reach a sizable reading public and begin to shape the development of American literature. In fact, when people summary the naturalism, Sister Carrie is the first article to be cited andTheodore Dreiser also is the first person to be argued (Ma 221).LuJing in her paper said Dreiser tried to illustrate that people do not have good or bad. There are only the stronger and weaker. Survival of the fittest is the principle of this world. So the environment becomes the determined fact in Sister Carrie. It is circumstance around Carrie drove her to seek money, enjoyment and success, which she cannot control (113). Liu Xiaoyan said from the aspect of Darwinism and Spencer’s “survival of the fittest”Carrie’s raising and Hurstwood’s decline is unalterable principle. From the first day they knew each other their fates have become to change. They are driven by instinct. Hurstwood was attracted by Carrie’s beauty and cannot able to extricate himself; Carrie was at the height of her youth and vigor. Own to her beauty she won men’s love. These truths again proved that one’s success depend on not only the heredity but also the circumstance and chance (22). Liu also said that in many critics they thought Carrie was a bad woman who loose in morals, but in Dreiser’s eyes he did not give words to blame Carrie because he thought these moral principle restrain humans instinct. Carrie stayed with two men one after another was not a debauch behavior but a reasonable result of the nature’s power (23). But Mou Ying a teacher from Nan Jing Normal University said Sister Carrie present an unmoral world. She summarized that the main characters, such as Carrie and Hurstwood all were the victims of material force and environmental force (53). Carrie in the novel is an epitome of Dreiser. She dose rise but she does so by means of male stepladder. She is not a simple gold digger; she is much more complex than that. At first, her goals were all visible: clothes, money, and convenient living room. Later, she was not satisfied with the living necessities. She realized she should conquer a high level world. She also was a typical American image in that who struggled in big cities. (Hu and Liu 300)In this paper, I want to point out that though Carrie was a woman who obeyed the naturalism completely she could not be degenerate. There is an old Chinese saying: to seek fortune in a decent way. Carrie at first depended on Druoet. Later on she met Hurstwood and abandoned the first man. Finally when she became the most popular star in Broadway she then left Hurstwood. I think these facts proved thatCarrie was a irresponsible person. Sometimes her early life was tragedy and I would pay sympathy to her but a successful person could not win a better life by absorbing lager group’s sympathetic. She should be independent by her own talent and capability but not men’s. We all know the American people have a value that they think in America they all have chance to get rid of poverty. But most of them do not know clearly that the treasure and wealthy are related hard working. Depends on others cannot be truly have the better life.Works CitedCao, Man. “Theodore Dreiser.” A Course Book of American Literature. 1st ed.2007.Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. New York: Ainnont Publishing Company, Inc, 1982.Hu, Yintong and Liu, Shusen. “Theodore Dreiser.” Course in American Literature.Tian Jing: Nan Jing University Press, 2007.Hart, James D. “ Naturalism.” The Oxford Companion to American Literature.1st ed. 2005.“Naturalism(philosophy)” Wikipedia Online. 2010. Wikipedia. 20 Apr. 2010< /wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)>.“Naturalism_(literature)” Wikipedia online. 2010. Wikipedia. 8 june 2010 < /wiki/Naturalism_(literature)>Perkins, George, and Barbara Perkins, ed. The Tradition in Literature.McGraw-Hill College, 1999.Pizer Donald, ed. New Essays on Sister Carrie. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2007.Selden, Raman, ed. The Theory of Criticism.London: Longman,1988.Tong, Ming. A History of American Literature. Nanjing: YiLin Press, 2002.刘晓妍. “浅析自然主义在《嘉莉妹妹》中的体现.” 《成都教育学院学报》.7,11 (2001): 22-24.牟英. “《嘉莉妹妹》—一步自然主义的杰作”. 《海南广播电视大学学报》.13, 4 (2003): 52-54.马晓菲. “《嘉莉妹妹》中的自然主义解读”.《辽宁行政学院学报》. 10,6 (2008)：220-221.从人物性格看原著中塑造的嘉莉妹妹是个贪恋都市繁华物质欲望强烈的人但是起码她有进取心且不论手段如何她没有像同时代的大多数女性那样觉得女人是男人的附属品她一直在追求自己事业的成功从她的情人方面看当然主要还是hurstwood 她与他的人生轨迹的刚好是相反的嘉莉是poor-to-rich hurstwood是rich-to-poor 你可以分析讨论下为什么会出现这种情况。