Abstract

American Dream is a cultural phenomenon as well as the dominant melody in American literature. And Sister Carrie by Dreiser is the typical representative of American literature influenced by the American Dream. In the novel Sister Carrie, Dreiser describes Carrie’s pursuit and disillusionment of her American Dream. He criticizes that the American Dream is an empty talk without any practices, and that it encourages people’s degeneration of soul.  The main pursuit of the American Dream is material pleasure, which cannot bring people anything. Everybody in Carrie’s time has his own dream, but they all follow Carrie’s way, owning a dream, then pursuing it, and finally losing it.
This thesis deals with the American Dream reflected in Sister Carrie from three aspects: in the first chapter, the thesis introduces the early American Dream, and its origin and its influences on American literature, from American history and American development along the history; in the second chapter, it describes Carrie’s pursuit and disillusionment of her dream respectively in details; and in the third chapter, it analyzes the causes of this tragedy to reveal the deepest root of social development and people’s unpleasant life under the influence of American Dream, not only the external but the internal reasons. Finally, the thesis comes to the conclusion that it is impossible for common people to own happiness in a society of monopolistic capitalism.

Key words: American dream; tragedy; causes; disillusionment

摘    要

美国梦不仅是一种文化现象，也是美国文学的主要旋律，德莱赛笔下的《嘉莉妹妹》就是美国梦影响下的美国文学的典型代表。在《嘉莉妹妹》这部作品中，通过对嘉莉美国梦的追寻和幻灭的描写，德莱赛批判了美国梦是没有任何实践证明的一纸空谈，它让人们的灵魂为之堕落。美国梦主要追求的是物质上的快乐，而这种快乐并不能带给人们需要的所有。与嘉莉生活在同一时期的每一个人都有他自己的美国梦，他们也都重复着嘉莉的悲剧，有了梦想，然后去追寻，最后失去。
本文从三个部分来分析《嘉莉妹妹》中所体现的美国梦：本文的第一章将从美国历史以及其历史长河中美国的发展来探讨早期的美国梦、它的起源以及它对美国文学的影响；第二章，本文将分别描述嘉莉美国梦的追寻和幻灭；作者将在第三章从外部和内部两个方面来分析造成这一悲剧的原因并且揭示社会发展的深刻根源以及美国梦影响下的人们的不幸生活；最后，本文得出如下结论：在垄断资本主义社会下，平民是不可能拥有自己的幸福的。
 
关键词：美国梦；悲剧；原因；幻灭