The Comparison Of The Female Characters In Sister Carrie And Jennie Gerhardt

Theodore Dreiser was a great writer in the beginning of 20^th century. He was of poor origin and experienced the extremely poverty-disaster-stricken life. The leading roles of his works are mistresses who are exempt from the social code. Dreiser's direct and uncommon style influenced other contemporary writers. This thesis aims to conduct a detailed analysis of the female characters in Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt and expose the evil nature of bourgeoisie society. At the same time, Dreiser's great insight and perplexity were clearly reviewed as a realist and naturalist writer. Dreiser was the trail-blazer of naturalism and turned to naturalism when he was puzzled by the contradictory world. His style of naturalism is unique because he sympathized the poor very much especially those women who had to trade themselves for adequate food and clothing. Meanwhile Dreiser longed for the vanity and luxury. He was fastidious about materials so he was not able to break through his bourgeoisie-yearning limits and remained his belief as a liberal bourgeoisie.