Abstract

    Sister Carrie is a novel telling the story of a small country girl Carrie who moves to Chicago to pursue her “American Dream” and eventually becomes a Broadway star in New York. Despite living a luxurious life, she is lost in spirit. After reading the novel, we might easily notice that Carrie’s different needs and desires are arising gradually with the time passing by. And in the process of pursuing material gains, Carrie betrays the traditional moral code.
    The paper analyzes Carrie’s various needs at different stages of life, mainly based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, to explore Carrie’s viewpoints towards life. Sister Carrie brings some enlightenments to contemporary youth: in modern society, material supplies become more and more abundant, but we should pay much attention to happiness and stability created by spirit instead of pursuing material wealth blindly. It is essential for us to establish a right viewpoint towards life and ponder the significance and the value of life.

Keywords: Hierarchy of Needs   Carrie  Viewpoints towards Life   Happiness

摘要

《嘉莉妹妹》是一部小说，它讲述了一位农村女孩嘉莉不甘贫穷来到芝加哥追求自己的“美国梦”，最终成为纽约百老汇一位著名演员的故事。嘉莉妹妹最终享受了奢华的物质生活，却陷入了精神的迷失。阅读这部小说我们很容易注意到嘉莉的需求和欲望随着时间的推移在不断地增长，然而她在追求物质财富的过程中违背了传统道德。
本文主要依据马斯洛不同层次需求理论，分析嘉莉在不同时期的需求，从而解析嘉莉的人生观。《嘉莉妹妹》的故事给我们现代年轻人带来了启迪：在物质越来越发达的今天，人们不应该盲目追求物质的享受，应该充分认识到精神带给我们的幸福感和满足感，并树立正确的人生观，思索自己人生的意义和价值所在。

关键词：需求层次理论；嘉莉；人生观；幸福

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Theodore Dreiser and His Literary Works
Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. When he was eighteen years old, a teacher recognized his talent and lent him money to go to Indiana University. Nevertheless, he quit school after a year. His early years were exposed to emotional instability, poverty, and religious bigotry.
Dreiser was a prolific writer, he published collections of poems, travel books, short stories, essays and plays, often of a political nature. He, in addition, wrote many autobiographical books.
Dreiser was considered as one of the most outstanding American naturalists. Under the profound influence of Herbert Spencer, he was in favor of the idea of social Darwinism. He thought that only the”fittest” and the most ruthless animals would survive in the world. In his eyes, the world is a machine while the man is only its mechanism, who can not control his destiny. And human tragedy comes from the conflict and collision between society’s cruel domination and man’s biological needs.