Study Of Immorality Of Characters In The Dreiser's Novels

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) is one of the greatest American Realistic writers in the twentieth century .In his writing career which lasted forty-five years or so , he produced eight novels in all which included Sister Carrie (1900) , Jennie Gerhardt (1911) ,The Financier (1912),The Titan (1914), The Stoic (1947) , The Genius (1915), An American Tragedy (1925) and The Bulwark (1946) . Although the protagonists who appeared in Dreiser's works are different in personalities , the immorality of characters are always the same .This paper tries to divide main characters of the novels into three catalogues and analyses seriously the immorality of them , meanwhile ,based on the theory of Taine , dug deeply Dreiser's writing psychology .The paper consists of the preface , the main part and the biblography .At first , it narrates the characters of Carrie Meeber and Sulun Barwins , both of who are defeated triumphants, and reveals harsh experience of childhood , bitter recall of his father as well as western literary tradition that emphasizes on moral mode .Next , the paper forms a thorough study of the characters of poor losers who included Jennie Gerhardt and Clyde Griffiths .It is said that Dreiser's yearnings for wealth and success in the youth , a rebellion against the main stream culture , which center on Puritanism , and the embarrass situation as immigrant the second generation are the reasons of his writing.At last , the paper studies about Frank Cowperwood and Eugene Witla who are overmen . They are analysed by the viewpoint of Nietzsche's Overman Theory , the social and economic development of America and the change of traditional value .