Abstract:
Sister Carrie is one of the most important novels of Theodore Dreiser, which relates a story of Carrie’s rise from a poor country girl to a Broadway star. This novel has aroused many critical and admirable arguments since its first publication in 1900. As for Sister Carrie’s fate, many scholars from home and abroad have investigated and studied from the perspectives of social morality and feminism, but a few people find its value from the point of psychology. This paper tries to apply Maslow’s Hierarchy theory, including physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, and esteem needs and actualization, to analyze the roots of Carrie’s desire. This unique angle will give a further explanation which from physiological desire to psychological one in her course of continuous growth from a lover of Drouet to a wife of Hursthood and finally to a Broadway star. At last, the paper emphasizes on the endless desire of people, under the influence of which, Carrie looks for satisfaction and wealth in her spirit and inner world after becoming a rich woman.

Key word: Sister Carrie；Maslow’s Hierarchy theory; desire  

摘  要：
《嘉莉妹妹》是西奥多•德莱赛最重要的小说之一，讲述了嘉莉从一位贫穷的农村姑娘一步步成为百老汇名角的故事。自1900年出版以来，这部小说便引起了评论家们褒贬不一的评论。对于嘉利的命运，以往国内外大多学者从社会道德和女性视角进行分析，而很少有人从心理角度分析。本文尝试着用马斯诺的心理层次需求理论包括心理需求和安全需求，对爱和归属的需求，以及自尊和自我实现的需求来分析嘉利的欲望根源。这种独特的视角有助于进一步说明嘉利从生理欲望到心理欲望是通过从成为杜洛埃的情人到成为赫斯特伍德的妻子以至最终成为百老汇名角的成长过程来一步一步实现的。本文最后强调人的欲望是无止境的，在获得巨大的物质财富后，嘉利最终要在精神和内心世界中寻找满足和富有。

关键词：《嘉莉妹妹》；马斯洛的心理层次需求理论；欲望

1 Introduction
Theodore Dreiser is one of America’s greatest writers and an outstanding American practitioner of naturalism. His novels succeed in the accumulation of realistic details and in the power and integrity, with which they delineate the tragic aspects of the American pursuit of worldly success. Sister Carrie is certainly one of enduring works of literature that displays a deep understanding of the American experience at the turn of the century, with its expansive desires and pervasive disillusionments.
1.1 Life and Career of Theodore Dreiser
Dreiser was the ninth of 10 surviving children, and his family lived in a poor condition. They moved frequently between small Indiana towns and Chicago in search of a living of lower cost. Dreiser’s harsh experience of poverty provides a lot of materials for his novel. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in Chicago in 1892.While writing for a Pittsburgh newspaper in 1894, he read the works of such scientists as, T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall, and adopted the philosophical speculations of Herbert Spence. Through these