A Comparative Study of “American Dream” in Sister Carrie and Death of a Salesman文献综述

 2022-07-29 11:07

——A Comparative Analysis of “American Dream” in Sister Carrie and Death of a Salesman

摘要：Sister Carrie is Theodore Dreiserrsquo;s masterpiece who is recognized as one of greatest realistic writers and the pioneers of American modern fictions in 20 century. Death of a Salesman is also one of the greatest works of Arthur Miller who is one of the most famous and successful dramatist in America after the World War II. Both of these two works have a great impact on American literature. And they both share the same topic, that is, American Dream. The two characters in the novel, Carrie and Willy both have their all American dream, but unfortunately, their dreams broke up finally. The paper aims to analyze the connotation and social background of Carriersquo;s American dream and Willyrsquo;s American dream as well as to analyze the social, environmental and personal factors that lead to the disillusionment of their dreams. In addition, my thesis is going to seek the similarities and differences between them and reveal the correlation and necessity of their disillusionment. Analysis can help me better understand the essence of American dream as well as deepen the understanding of the topic of the works.

关键词：American Dream； Sister Carrie； Willy Loman；disillusionment

一、文献综述

I. Research Background

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) has emerged as a most famous and successful dramatist in America after the World War II, and his representative work Death of a Salesman was considered as the most celebrated and most produced play during the post-war era in America. He made his Broadway debut with “The Man Who Had All the Luck”, which lasted only four performances but helped him win the theatre guildrsquo;s National Award. He went on to publish two books, Situation Normal in 1944, and Focus in 1945, but it was in 1947 that his star became ascendant. His play “All My Sons,” directed by Elia Kazan, became a hit on Broadway, running for 328 performances so that Miller received Tony Awards and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Then the death of a salesman was written when the political situation shifted and it was even directed at the Peoplersquo;s Art Theatre in Beijing in 1983. The main character in the novel is Willy Loman, a salesman with 30-year-selling experience who is fascinated and deeply affected by the America business culture which makes him firmly believe he can achieve his value and gain popularity by commodity selling. However his American dream broke and he himself has even never realized the reason until his death. It was also considered to be one of the best three plays in the history of American drama with A Streetcar Named Desire and Long Dayrsquo;s Journey into Night. In Millerrsquo;s more than thirty plays he has remained socially engaged and has written with conscience, clarity, and compassion. , so he is also called “the conscience of the American drama”.

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) is recognized as one of greatest realistic writers and the pioneers of American modern fictions in 20 century. He is also known as one of the founders of America naturalism whose works tend to explore peoplersquo;s real life which is full of sufferings. His works are right the reflection of his own life and because of his writing style, he becomes a most controversial writer in American literature. He is also considered as one of the three giants of modern American novels with Hemingway and Faulkner. Sister Carrie is Dreiserrsquo;s first long novel and, at the same time, the most controversial one, being published at 1910 and it has gotten lots of censures and was criticized by critics and readers. It has conveyed a story how an ordinary girl change from the rural area of the Columbia to a shining Broadway star in New York. On the way to her dreaming success, she has experienced the betrayal of her own body and soul, suffering the fickleness of the city life. The novel has exposed the coldness, superficialness and the excessive advocate of the money of the American middle class. For Sister Carriersquo;s creation is right in the Darwinism prevalent period so it is hard not to relate the focus of naturalism, survival of the fittest, to the struggle and desire of the characters in the novel. And it has also highlight features of naturalism. Later in 1911, he published a companion Jennie Gerhardt. And his Financier (1912), Giant (1914) and the Stoic (1945) composed his realism masterpiece trilogy of desire in 1927. Among all his literature works, Dreiserrsquo;s long novel an American Tragedy has reached the peak of his art creation.

II. Research situation

Though it has been only around two hundred years since the birth of the America, American Dream is still a hotspot in the research of the current society at home and aboard. Numbers of works are produced under such America background. Zhao Hongwei reveals the social darkness and emptiness of the reality by analyzing those typical broken American Dreams and the root of those tragedies. For American Dream is surely the eternal topic in American literature, the description and study of the “American Dream” aboard appears continuously. John F. Callahan depicts the features of American “Jazz age” to show the young generation and their broken American Dreams. David F. Trask interprets the broken American Dream from the perspective of the culture. And Sister Carrie and Death of a Salesman are two contemporary outstanding works at their times. The disillusionment of their American Dream has drawn great attention of the critics since the publication of works. The critics have studied the woks from different view of angles. Most of essays analyze the American social background, basic characteristics of the protagonists and possible reasons leading to their tragedy. Towards American dream, Arthur Miller has said “The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out. Whoever is writing in the United States is using the American Dream as an ironical pole of his story. People elsewhere tend to accept, to a far greater degree anyway, that the conditions of life are hostile to manrsquo;s pretensions.”

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