A Lacanian Study Of Desires In Sister Carrie

As one of the pioneers of American modern fictions,Theodore Dreiser is good at writing of naturalism.With his rich life experience,he has unique insights into lifestyles and desires of people in various classes,the distortion of human nature and social corruption at that time as well.Sister Carrie,one of his masterpieces,shows the materialistic society and insatiable human beings through the urban life experience of a helpless and lonely rural girl—Carrie.It finds out that domestic researches of this novel from the point of Lacan’s desire theory have not been systematic enough based on literature review.This novel is filled with desire,which is also the key to understanding this book of desire,so this paper sets to explore different levels of desires in this novel from hierarchy of desires in Lacan’s desire theory.According to desire theory,the body part of this paper can be divided into three sections: the first chapter takes the first level of desire—material “Need” as the framework and explores the first level of desire based on basic survival experience of the Hansons,shoemakers and Carrie,who are in the hard struggle against poverty in Chicago;then the exploration finds out the first level of desire of human beings can be satisfied and one’s desire comes from others and others’ desire.The second chapter further investigates the decent life experience of Drouet,Hurstwood and Carrie who have already obtained basic material needs in the framework of emotional “Demand”—the second level of Lacan’s desire theory,then the investigation draws the conclusion that one’s second level of desire can be partly satisfied due to the intervention of language and the split of the other;therefore the other part of emotional “Demand” which remains unsatisfied becomes the third level of desire.The third chapter puts emphasis on desire of material enjoyment represented by Mrs.Hurstwood’s and desire of independence represented by famous Carrie’s desires through the lens of Lacan’s third level of desire—the insatiable “Desire”,and it summarizes that people’s highest level of desire can never be satisfied;it also proves that one’s desire comes from the other and what the other desires,which are the subject s/he does not own,so one’s desire in essence is a kind of lack,which can never be satisfied,since once fulfilled,it is no longer a desire.Through the arguments above,it can be safely concluded that people’s lowest level of desire can be satisfied,but the highest one is endless and unsatisfiable;the persistent pursuit of such desire will certainlygive rise to the subjects’ confusion and distortion in nature.By the discussion of different characters’ various desires in this novel,this paper not only reappears the living state of human beings at that time,but also shows void of their spiritual world,so as to warn young people to set up correct values and not to lose themselves in the material world when pursuing their happiness,besides,it also enriches the academic researches of Sister Carrie.