Literature review

In 1859, the whole world was startled by the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. This biological masterwork explained man's origin in the animal world and through the scientific discoveries people expanded their horizon and began to understand themselves. Darwin's evolutionary theory gave naturalism its theoretical basis. Donald Pizer points out that Darwin's evolutionary theory is the comparatively most important theory to naturalism. ―Darwin's On the Origin of Species would prove more significant for naturalism, though it came out as early as the 19th century.‖(Pizer, 1859:27) in 1880s, being much influenced by French naturalist#8212;Emile Zola, these naturalists emphasize the insignificance and helplessness of man in the modern life. Moreover, they also regarded reality as the highest standards of writing and tried to explore into human nature by putting individual into big environment of the whole world and to find out the evil side of the society.

When first released in 1990, Sister Carrie was in no circumstances warmly welcomed. The young author felt so depressed. An example from Chang―his first novel, Sister Carrie, was rejected because of its relentless presenting the true nature of American life.‖ (Chang, 2008:148). Sister Carrie is the first time article to be cited and Theodore Dreiser also is the first person to be argued.‖ (Ma, 2008:221) Up until now, the relevant research on Dreiser and Sister Carrie is principally concerned with the frustration of the American dream, naturalism, consumerism, feminist and pessimism.

Like most naturalists, Dreiser in the novel presents his mechanistic view of life: human beings are subject to environment, heredity and instinct (Jiang Daochao, 2003). Dreiser portrays the relationship among reason, free will and instinct in detail: when humans' instinct and reason are in conflict, the former always gains ground on the latter in most cases; humans' free will is mostly an illusion and subject to humans' instinct. In almost all of Dreiser' s works, there is an understandable view of women at his time. He denied all the traditional rules at that time. The women in his works are not prepared to accept the life that the society gives them. So they are ”family angels” apparently, while they are doing their best to struggle against the reality. Dreiser believes Darwinism and he makes the society as a big bass, in which all the beings are trying their best to survive in the world. ”Look all around you, that voice goes on... look at the kind people; they look down upon what you are doing. Look at the nice girls, they will hide from you, if they know that you are easy to be enticed. You have died without struggling against the hard times” (Dreiser, 2008:114).

The common characteristics in Dreiser's writings leave a deep impression on the readers. In Sister Carrie, he reveals some of themes other than the generic characteristics in his writings (Doctorow, 1992:5). Man, according to Dreiser, is ”a wisp in the wind” (Dreiser, 2008:85), so his fate is out of his own control since he cannot act out of his will but determined by various forces, such as heredity, instinct and chance. In addition, Dreiser claims that human civilization is still in the intermediate stage between beasts and human, so humans' free will can't replace his instinct. In other words, human beings are neither ”best” nor ”human”. As a result, human beings are now guided by instinct, now by free will.