Comparative Study Of "Disillusionment" Characters In The Novels Of Mao Dun And Theodore Dreiser

Mao Dun and Theodore Dreiser, as the famous modern writers, both of they try to describe the true life. Although the different social environment and personal experiences had resulted in their works have certain differences on specific content. However, Mao Dun and Theodore Dreiser in life all had more or less pessimistic and "disillusionment" emotional experience. They not only came from personal experiences, but also from observation of the surrounding world. Therefore, Mao Dun and Dreiser invariably created a group of "repeated" feature "disillusionment" characters in the novels. Due to social background, cultural tradition, and creative ideas were not the same, they inevitably different in Mao Dun and Dreiser’s novels.In terms of ideological content of the works, firstly, they have shaped three kinds of "disillusionment" Characters, the life form, the ideal type and the existential type. In contrast, Mao Dun preferred to depict the unsuccessful people who pursuit the social ideal, but Dreiser looked to portray the losers who seek personal ideal. Mao Dun was eager to show people’s confusion in the chaotic society, while Dreiser seem to be more concerned about the loss of inherent values and beliefs in transition period.Secondly, they attitude treated "disillusionment" characters’ also have similarities and differences. The same was that they shared a distinct male consciousness, which made the female characters more simplification and marginalization. The difference was that Mao Dun treated "disillusionment" figures with examine and speculative attitude, Theodore Dreiser was always showing recognition and sympathy. That is why the tone of Mao Dun’s novels presented open and bright, but Dreiser’s works were showing gloomy and dark features.On the form of skills, in order to highlight "disillusionment" characters’ "repetitive" features and tragic fate as well as the writer’s real attitude of this kind of people, Mao Dun and Theodore Dreiser all used the frequent space conversion, non-narrative discourse, describing the social environment and other techniques. However, Theodore Dreiser more accustomed to use non-narrative discourse. And in the choice of the social environment, Mao Dun selected war and revolution as background, Dreiser mainly described personal experiences of environment and the changes in the social transformation."Disillusionment" characters shaped by different writers have different approaches, comparison the characters of the two writers may give us something different. On one hand, we can be more clear and comprehensive understanding of this kind of image, on the other hand, we also can be deeper excavate works’ value and the writers ’ creative thinking.