浅析《嘉莉妹妹》中嘉莉妹妹对幸福的追求_英语论文

On Carrie’s Pursuit of Happiness in Sister Carrie 

摘要

西奥多·德莱塞是20世纪初期美国文学史上杰出的现实主义小说家。《嘉莉妹妹》是美德莱塞的第一部长篇小说，也是美国文学史上一部具有划时代意义的的作品，创造了美国文学的新纪元。在书中，德莱塞向我们展示了一个天真的农村女孩，来到芝加哥追求她所认为的幸福，以及最后成为纽约有名的明星。虽然过着舒适的生活，但她使自己迷失在物质生活里。阅读小说，我们可以清楚的发现当嘉莉妹妹满足了一项追求，她想要更多的追求。同时，在追求幸福的过程中她违背了传统道德标准。现今，许多人仍然持这样的观点，他们认为嘉莉妹妹是一个悲剧，在这场悲剧中，她被谴责为不道德的女人，就算成功地跻身上流社会，她的生活仍然很空虚落寞的。这篇文章主要探讨嘉莉妹妹对幸福的追求过程以及最后的得失。通过研究她的追求过程，我们可以得到宝贵的经验：年轻人应该自尊、自信、独立自主，并尽力克服在追求幸福的道路上所遇到的困难，要做掌握自己命运的主人。每个人都有追求幸福的权利，但我们不能随波逐流，不能像嘉莉妹妹一样，为了过上理想的生活而不顾任何代价，否则也只会像她那样坐在摇椅继续幻想。

关键词：嘉莉妹妹 追求 幸福

Abstract

Theodore Dreiser is an outstanding naturalistic novelist in America literature in the early 20th century. Sister Carrie is the first novel of Theodore Dreiser, it is also a epoch-making work in American literary history, which created a new era of American literature. In the book, Dreiser shows us an innocent country girl who comes to Chicago to pursue the happiness that she thinks it should be and at last becomes a famous star in New York City. Though living a comfortable life, she lost herself in material life. Reading this novel, we can make it clear that Carrie’s pursuit goes further when she meets one need. She also betray the traditional moral standard on the way of pursuing happiness. Nowadays many people still hold the opinion that Carrie is a tragedy, in which she is described as an immoral woman and she had an empty life though she succeed in climbing into the upper class at the end of the book. This paper mainly discusses the process of Carrie’s pursuing of happiness and what she got at last. By studying the process of her pursuit, we can get valuable experience: the youth should be self-respected, self-confident and self-dependent and try to overcome the difficulty on our way of pursuing happiness and to be the master of our own fate. Everyone has the right to pursue happiness, but we cannot swim with the tide, just like Sister Carrie who pursues her ideal life at any cost, or we will just be like her imagining the beautiful life on the rocking chair.

Key words: Carrie  pursuit  happiness