嘉莉妹妹美国梦的破灭英语论文本科学位论文

本科生毕业论文（设计）册

学院XXX学院

专业英语教育

班级XXX级英语教育X班

学生XX

指导教师XX

XXXX大学本科毕业论文（设计）任务书

编号：

论文（设计）题目：嘉莉妹妹美国梦的破灭

学院： XXX学院专业：英语教育班级： XXX级英语教育X班

学生姓名： XX 学号： XXXX 指导教师： XX 职称：XX

1、论文（设计）研究目标及主要任务

本论文的研究目标是探讨《嘉莉妹妹》中美国梦的破灭。其主要任务是通过分析嘉莉妹妹追求好生活、爱情以及名誉的美国梦的破灭及其原因来揭示在当时社会中，人们通过努力工作来实现美国梦的想法是不可能实现的。

2、论文（设计）的主要内容

本论文分为三章，第一章介绍嘉莉妹妹追求物质生活的美国梦的破灭，第二章介绍嘉莉妹妹追求真爱的美国梦的破灭，最后一章讨论嘉莉妹妹追求名誉的美国梦的破灭。

3、论文（设计）的基础条件及研究路线

本论文的基础条件是嘉莉妹妹美国梦的破灭。

研究路线是通过对嘉莉妹妹所追求的美国梦的破灭，向读者阐释一个事实：在那个时代，仅仅靠自身努力地劳动是不能够实现美国梦的，美国梦已经失去了以前的含义。

4、主要参考文献

Dreiser Theodore. Sister Carrie. Toronto: Bantam Boodle, 1982

Dreiser Theodore. Sister Carrie. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2009.

David E.E, Sloane. Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser’s Sociological Tragedy New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

常耀信, 2003,《美国文学简史》. 天津：南开大学出版社.

王刚华, 2002, 嘉莉妹妹的欲望和驱动力.《外国文学研究》. 2002年第三期, 13页.

5、计划进度

阶段起止日期

1 确定初步论文题目3月16日前

2 与导师见面，确定大致范围，填开题报告和

任务书，导师签字

3月16日-3月23日

3 提交论文提纲3月23日-3月30日

4 交初稿和文献综述3月30日-4月20日

5 交终稿和评议书5月8日前

指导教师：年月日

教研室主任：年月

注：一式三份，学院（系）、指导教师、学生各一份

XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）开题报告书

XXX学院英语教育专业 XXXX 届

学生姓名XX

论文（设

计）题目

嘉莉妹妹美国梦的破灭

指导教师XX

专业

职称

所属教

研室

英语高年

级教研室

研究方

向

英美文学

课题论证：通过嘉莉妹妹在追求美好生活、真爱和名誉的美国梦的破灭的过程中揭示出在那个时代，仅仅通过自己努力劳动是不能实现美国梦的。

方案设计：第一章介绍嘉莉妹妹追求物质生活美国梦的破灭，

第二章阐述嘉莉妹妹追求真爱的美国梦的破灭，

第三章探讨嘉莉妹妹追求名誉的美国梦的破灭。

进度计划：3月16日前确定初步论文题目

3月30日前写开题报告、任务书

3月30日前提交论文提纲

4月20日前提交初稿和文献综述

5月8日前交终稿和评议书

指导教师意见：

指导教师签名：年月日

教研室意见：

教研室主任签名：年月日XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）评议书

姓名XX 学院XXX学

院

专业

英语

教育

年级（班）

XXXX级英语

教育X班

论文题目嘉莉妹妹美国梦的破灭完成时间2013/5/8

论文内容摘要

《嘉莉妹妹》是西奥多.德莱赛所有作品中的代表作。它反映了19世纪美国社会的真实状况。当这本书出社会上发行时，有许多人批评它，所以主人公嘉莉妹妹一时成为一个热门的话题。当时，许多作者和读者都批评它，认为女主人公的行为是不道德的。这篇论文主要分析嘉莉妹妹的美国梦的破灭。同时，论文也分析了造成嘉莉妹妹悲剧的种种原因。

这篇论文由四个大章节加上引言和结论六个部分构成。在论文一开始，作者介绍了美国梦的起源与发展。然后作者对于德莱赛的生活经历和他的书目做了一个简单地介绍。然后作者讲述了嘉莉妹妹的追梦过程以及她的美国梦的破灭。

在第一个章节中，作者向读者们展示了一个去大城市谋求更好生活的一个单纯的女孩。作者介绍了佳丽妹妹在第一阶段的美国梦是什么、她的美国梦是怎么样破灭的、以及破灭的原因。在其它的章节中，作者仍然像第一章节一样安排故事情节。作者先向读者们说明嘉莉的美国梦是什么，然后介绍她的美国梦是在哪买样破灭的，最后告诉读者美国梦破灭的原因。在论文的最后，作者做了一个总结：当时的美国梦是非常易碎的。它看起来美丽，事实上非常的不可靠，就像翅膀一样脆弱。嘉莉妹妹就是脆弱的美国梦中的一个受害者。

指

导

教

师

评

语年月日指导教师职称初评成绩

答辩小组

姓名职称教研室组长

成员

答辩记录：

记录人签字：年月日XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述

Literature Review

Theodore Dreiser was bone in an immigrant family in Indiana. His childhood was not stable and often wandered here and there with his mother. Because of lacking of money, he discounted his studies, and came to Chicago for seeking a livelihood by himself. There he once worked as a dishwasher, a boiler, and did other odd jobs. Later owing to the help of his teacher, he came back to school and studied for one year in Indiana University. In the university he read a lot of books, which was written by some very famous writers like Darwin, Spencer and so on. However, he realized that his studies can not solve his problems in life. So one year later he came back to Chicago and continued doing burdensome physical labor at the bottom of life.

Later as adults, Dreiser wanted to seek another development, so he determined to devote himself into the field of the journalists. He worked for both Chicago Globe and St. Louis’s Globe-Democrat. Here he got endless source of writing. In 1894, he came to New York to earn a living. Although New York was a big city, it was hard for him to find an appropriate job. There Dreiser lived such a tough life that he even wanted to suicide. Thanks to his brother Paul, Dreiser found a job in New York Monthly magazine and worked as an editor and main contributor. The experience when he worked as a journalist made him meet people of all ranks in American society, which laid a solid foundation for his later art creation. He wanted to show his own experience to common people to encourage them, so he created a lot of books, including Sister Carrie.

Theodore Dreiser was a man who has a lot of works during his life time. But his most famous work is Sister Carrie, and it is also the masterpiece in all his books. Dreiser’s life experience is so tough that he is clear about the sufferings of people in lower class. As a writer, he hopes to tell his own life experience to the people in lower class in order to encourage them. He hates the government and sympathy the common people. And soon he creates Carrie Sister in 1900. When the book was came out, there

were many critics commented on it. It was rejected because of its relentless honestly in presenting the true nature of American life. Then Dreiser felt so depressed by “a decade’s delay”—in the words of Larzer Ziff—in social recognition that he was said to have walked by the East River at the turn of the century, seriously contemplating suicide. He faced every form of attack that a serious artist could encounter, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, artistic isolation, and commercial seduction. But he endured all and held out long, and survived to lead the rebellion of the 1920s. He created many works, such as Jennie Gerhardt, The Financier, The Titan, An American Tragedy and so on.

In the book Sister Carrie, Dreiser depicted a country girl, Sister Carrie, who came to Chicago to look for a better life. She first stayed with her sister whose working—class home is, however, too poor to keep her. Winter was coming and she was seriously ill. A traveling salesman, Douret by name, came to her rescue and took her home as his mistress. Sister Carrie’s beauty appealed to Douret’s friends, Hurstwood, so that the respectable manager deserted his comfortable home and family and forced her to elope with him. They ran first to Canada and then settled down in New York. For some time they experienced dire poverty. Sister Carrie went out to find work on the stage, but Hurstwood proved himself to be utterly unfit to survive. He could not find work, and begged for and received some occasional support from Sister Carrie. His downfall was complete when he committed suicide on one cold winter night. Sister Carrie managed to move up in her career, and Douret came back to renew some connection with her, only to be rebuffed and leave rejected. At the end of the book Sister Carrie was seen sitting in her rocking—chair, still rocking.

The book Sister Carrie was commented by many famous writers both in foreign countries and in China. For example, William Marion Reed once wrote:

At times the whole thing is impossible, and then again it is as life

itself. …the story, as a hole, has a grip that is not exercised upon any

unwholesome taste. …the charm, despite violence to taste and hovering

intimations even of absurdity, remains superior to and defiant of analysis.3

Frank Norris had regarded Sister Carrie as a breakthrough in American realism. In 1901, William Heinemann published an English version of this book, and it sold well in England. As time passed, Comment on this book was reinforced by the new humanism. The representatives were Stuart Sherman, Paul Elmer More and Irving Babbitt and Robert Schafer. They commented on Dreiser’s books, and when naturalism got its full time, Dreiser’s works were extremely famous.

In China, some critics would like to comment on the specific aspects of his works, such as the theme, style, structure and the cultural significance. In 1982, Luo Guanghuan wrote On Sister Carrie’s Realism in foreign study. And then in 1984, Xu Ruzhi wrote A Brief Comment on Dreiser, Zhu Da wrote On Dresier’s Sister Carrie in 1989, and in 2003 Lin Bin did A Feminist Reading of Sister Carrie: On the Ambivalence of Dreiser’s View of Womanhood. Some articles can also be found in journals. In 2000, Pan Qingling wrote Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie—in Commemoration of the First Centennial Anniversary of the Publication of Sister Carrie in the Journal of Shanghai University. In the same year, Jiang Daochao did A Cultural Assumption Difficult to Transcend—A Review of the Twentieth Century Studies of Theodore Dreiser In China and USA in the Journal of Shenzhen University.

本科生毕业论文设计题目：嘉莉妹妹美国梦的破灭

作者姓名： XX

指导教师： XX

所在学院： XXX学院

专业（系）：英语教育

班级（届）： XXXX届

完成日期 2013 年 5 月 8 日

An Analysis of the Disillusion of Sister Carrie’s American

Dream

Prof. XXX, Tutor

A Thesis Submitted to Department of English

Language and Literature in Partial

Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in English

At XXXUniversity

May 8, 2013

Abstract

Sister Carrie was the masterpiece among Theodore Dreiser’s works. It reflected the real social phenomenon in the 19th century in American. When it came out in society, there were a lot of critics who commented on this book. Thus the main character Sister Carrie became a hot topic among people. At that time, Dreiser was criticized by other writers and readers because they thought Carrie’s behavior was immoral. This thesis was mainly to analyze the disillusion with Carrie’s American dream. At the same time, it was also analyze the reasons which caused her tragedy.

The thesis was divided into three chapters besides an introduction and a conclusion. At the beginning of the thesis, the author introduced the origin of American dream and its development. Then the author gave a brief introduction about Dreiser’s life experience and his books, and later he told readers the process of Carrie’s chasing dreams and the disillusion with her dreams.

In the first chapter, the author showed his reader an innocent girl who came to Chicago for better life. He told readers what was Carrie’s dream and the process of pursuing her dream. And at last the author showed the reasons to his readers which caused the broken of Carrie’s American dream with materials. In other chapters, the author still arranged the storyline the same as the first chapter. The author first showed readers what was Carrie’s American dream, and then the process of the disillusion of her American dream, and at last the reasons which caused the broken of her American dream. In the end of this thesis, the author made a conclusion: American dream was fragile in that time. Although it looked beautiful, it was not reliable in fact, just like wings. Carrie was just a victim of the fragile American dream.

Key words: good life, true love, fame, American dream, disillusion

Abstract in Chinese

这篇论文由三个大章节加上引言和结论五个部分构成。在论文一开始，作者介绍了美国梦的起源与发展。然后作者对于德莱赛的生活经历和他的书目做了一个简单地介绍。然后作者讲述了嘉莉妹妹的追梦过程以及她的美国梦的破灭。

关键词：美好的生活；真爱；名誉；美国梦；破灭

Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................... III Abstract in Chinese .................................................................I V Introduction (1)

Chapter I Carrie’s American Dream of Good Life (5)

A.An embryonic of Carrie’s American dream for good life (5)

B.The first disillusion with Carrie’s American dream (7)

C.The reasons of Carrie’s disillusion with the American dream (7)

Chapter II Carrie’s American Dream of True Love and Happiness (10)

A.Carrie’s American dream in pursuit of true love and happiness (10)

B.The second disillusion with Carrie’s American dream (11)

C.The causes of Carrie’s disillusion with the American dream (11)

Chapter III Carrie’s Final American Dream of Fame and Materials (14)

A.Carrie’s final American dream about fame and materials (14)

B.The last disillusion with Carrie’s American dream (15)

C.The causes of Carrie’s disillusion with the American dream (15)

Conclusion (17)

Notes (19)

Bibliography (20)

Introduction

It is known that America is a country in which almost every people have their own dream. The so called American dream was originated from Mayflower which was happened in 1620, and from then it was widely developed. The term “American dream”was a national ethos of the United States, a set of ideals in which freedom included the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work. In the definition of American dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth”. 1But with the changes of times, the development of capitalism and the prevalence of money worship in the United States, the original nice American dream has been distorted and become a kind of way in which people get wealth by fire means or foul. Some historians say that American dream is the infinite desire for wealth and chase.

His own ordeal equipped him to sympathy the common people in the bottom of American society. He thought it was imperative to tell people about his own life experience in order to reveal such confusing real life. Driven by this kind of mood, he started his writing. Later he created the famous novel Sister Carrie. It was his first work, and it was also one of the most famous novels in the history of American literature. When the book was published in society, it caused a great response among readers. There were many critics commented on it. Even people in upper class criticized him because the impact of his book had nearly shaken the tradition of the American society. With rustic vision he revealed the dark side of American society frankly and directly. In particular, he showed sympathetic mood to the people in the bottom of society. Eventually he was recognized by most readers and thus established his position in American literature. He accepted high praise from Sinclair Lewis, who won the first American Nobel Prize for literature in 1930. Lewis said “Dreiser, more than any other man, is 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.”2 In 1911, his second novel was published, which gained him more fame. And later he created many famous works, such as The Genius, A American Tragedy and so on. Those works laid a solid foundation for Dreiser in literature field.

In the book Sister Carrie, Dreiser revealed a real money-related American society to the readers. In 1889, the heroine Carrie, who was only 18 years old, left her hometown and came to Chicago by herself. Having been long yearning for big cities, Carrie began her trip for dreams. On the train she met the canvasser Drouet, who had bulging purse and burnished leather shoes. He tried to talk with Carrie and at last his daring attempt made a hit with Carrie. Although Carrie wanted to keep silent at first, her passivity made her respond to Douret. After Carrie arrived in Chicago, she wanted to find a job to support herself, but she was refused by each company. What was worse, she had no money and was rejected by her brother-in-low. Under these circumstances, she met Drouet once again and lived with him together, and later she got through the difficult situations. Of course, her life was changed. Now she could by a lot of clothes, hats and lots of things she needed. Through Drouet she knew Hurstwood, the manager of Fitzgerald and Moy’s. Hurstwood was infatuated with Carrie’s beauty, so he took lots of methods to seduce Carrie. As a result, Carrie was