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美国文学简史完全笔记 Chapter 4

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Chapter 4 American Naturalism

I. Background

1.Darwin*s theory: ※natural selection§

2.Spenser*s idea: ※social Darwinism§

3.French Naturalism: Zora

II. Features

1.environment and heredity

2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details

3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the society

III.    significance

It prepares the way for the writing of 1920s* ※lost generation§ and T. S. Eliot.

IV.     Theodore Dreiser

1.life

2.works

(1)Sister Carrie

(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic

(3)Jennie Gerhardt

(4)American Tragedy

(5)The Genius

3.point of view

(1)He embraced social Darwinism 每 survival of the fittest. He learned to regard man as merely an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the ※fittest§, the most ruthless, survive.

(2)Life is predatory, a ※game§ of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle in which man, being ※a waif and an interloper in Nature§, a ※wisp in the wind of social forces§, is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with no power whatever to assert his will.

(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internal chemisms and by the forces of social pressure.

4.Sister Carrie

(1)Plot

(2)Analysis

5.Style

(1)Without good structure

(2)Deficient characterization

(3)Lack in imagination

(4)Journalistic method

(5)Techniques in painting

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