A Study Of The Writing Of City In Dreiser's Works

As a well-known novelist in American literature in the transitional period between 19^th and 20^th century, Theodore Dreiser first portrays in his works the originality of American urban life after industrialization, which honors him the pioneer of American 20^th century city literature. In a combined method of cultural criticism and text analysis, this paper presents a study of the writing of city in Dreiser's works in a given context of American industrialization, urbanization and consuming culture in transitional period.Apart from the parts of Introduction and Conclusion, this paper consists of three chapters as follow:The first chapter attempts to anaryze the reasons why the author focuses on the city writing. The study reveals the great influence of the writer's life experiences and city complex on him, and also illustrates a survey to his city writing and city image of Chicago and New York mirrored by the soul description.The second chapter takes a case study of Sister Carrie to explore the material circumstances where characters in Dreiser's stories live, and points out that the writer not only gives a detailed description of specific types of city space but also makes it the value space which can limit the social recognition of the dwellers. Meanwhile, as described, the reinforcement of its functions can also hehp city space take an active part in illustrating.The third chapter puts its efforts on the description of strangers' tramping conditions and the abnormal development of their souls, with Carrie being the representative, indicating that it is the money-driven and desire-oriented city life that mostly leads to people's humanity loss and dissimilation which well reflects modern nature of Dreiser's stories.In conclusion, Dreiser's writing of city demonstrates his worries about industrialized and desire-oriented city living conditions and also his doubts about rational consuming culture which reveals profound modern value concerns.