Comparatively Studying Naturalist Creation Tendency On Nana And Sister Carrie

Nana and Sister Carrie are two famous novels written respectively by Emile Zola, a French writer and Theodore Dreiser, an American writer. They lived in different countries and in different times, but both of them had described woman's stories in their own novel by the narrative way of naturalism, demonstrating the social changes both in France and America. Zola, the founder of naturalism, by describing the story of a prostitute named Nana , has exposed the promiscuity and decay of the upper classes of bourgeoisie , on which prostitute society rely, by naturalist techniques and style. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser has combined social roots with the different patterns of characters'destiny by depicting the process in which Sister Carrie, an innocent and pure young girl from the countryside, turns into a famous comedy star, explaining how the social forces has been influencing the average persons who are struggling for a living at the bottom of their society and embodying the author's creative idea of naturalism——"Mechanism".In this thesis, the writer has comparatively studied naturalist creation tendency on Nana and Sister Carrie mainly in the following four aspects, attempting to outline the differences in naturalist creation between the two novels as well as the causes of those differences :I. Zola's"biological heredity determinism"and Dreiser's"mechanism"The author first points out in this part that the two writers have different stress in the creative idea: Zola, from the view of"biological heredity determinism", has emphatically highlighted the naturalist tendency of hereditary and physiological instinct; while Dreiser, in the creation process of Sister Carrie , bases his creative idea on"the mechanism"towards reality and the view of"the mechanism"has expressed"environment determinism"fully. Then, on the basis of this, the author elaborates on the embodiment of the two writers' creative idea of naturalism in their respective works.II. Zola's"Narrative neutrality"and Dreiser's"philosophical interpretations pattern"In this part, the author makes a comparative study of the two writers' differences in handling factual materials for writing: the former emphasizes that novelist should remain neutral while narrating, first of all, no any clear criticism; while the latter focuses his novel on philosophical interpretations.III. Zola's"clear love-or-hate tendency to characters"and Dreiser's"non-moral indifference"The author first explains in this part that Dreiser was influenced by Spencer's philosophy and accepted the impact of mechanical point of view, therefore, Dreiser implemented a"non-moral indifference"in the novel, that is, regarding characters' all behaviors, he expressed no condemnation or glorify. However, by means of depicting vivid facts and ironic contrast, Zola had cleverly managed to express his love or hate tendency to his characters. Then, the author has emphatically discussed Dreiser's naturalist moral outlooks——Spenser's moral outlooks of evolution as well as the embodiment of Zola's"clear love-or-hate tendency to characters"in Nana.Ⅳ. Zola's"biological fatalism"and Dreiser's"fatalism philosophy"The author argues in this part that although Zola and Dreiser all mold their protagonists on an image of a tragic figure, however, Zola's"biological fatalism"doesn't cover the same meaning as Dreiser's"fatalism philosophy". This is simply because that the two writers come from different social and cultural background and moreover, have respectively come under different influence of social ideological trend. This difference fully explains Dreiser's pessimistic outlooks on life. Finally, through the comparative analysis of the above-mentioned several aspects, the author gereralizes the cause of those differences in naturalist creation between the two novels. It is mainly attributed to the fact that the two writers were in different times and in different social situation, hence under different influence of social ideological trend. Zola's naturalist creation theories had influenced American writers in some degrees, however, they didn't accept Zola's theories completely, that is, American literature naturalism has its own characteristics. Therefore, compared with Europe, the naturalist grand talents of the United States mature slowly, but it also increases its"scientific and heterogeneous nature".