[The inherent ambivalence of Dreiser's view of women from Sister Carrie]Traditional women in Sister Carrie

Abstract: "Sister Carrie" is the American writer Theodore Dreiser's naturalistic masterpiece, the author of bold innovation, the courage to question and break the traditional ideological confinement of the American literary world, he portrayed in the "Sister Carrie" in the image of the heroine Carrie is contrary to the prevailing culture in the "femininity" ideology, critics believe that Carrie represents the "new woman" in American society. The author's portrayal of Carrie in Sister Carrie was contrary to the ideology of "femininity" in the dominant culture at that time, and critics believed that Carrie represented the "new woman" in American society. The author's "ambiguous" and even contradictory stance towards Carrie's "degradation", and the shadow of male chauvinism in the work, from the anti-mainstream consciousness to the return of mainstream consciousness, the inherent contradiction of Dreiser's view of women is expressed to the fullest extent.

Keywords: Sister Carrie, Femininity, New Woman

Sister Carrie is the first work of Theodore Dreiser, an American naturalist writer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Living at the turn of the century in the era of alternation between the old and the new, Dreiser was faithful to the original face of life and bravely faced the society and life, and with his astonishing and unconventional antitraditionalism, he pioneered the modern novel. When Sister Carrie was published, the theme of the American literary world was the tradition of the Victorian era, which specialized in positively depicting the life of the upper class, writing about those who lived with a smile, and revered the traditions of the upper class and the moral code of the upper class. Instead, Deleuze focuses on the harrowing plight of ordinary women and their spiritual needs during the period of rising capitalism.

I. Anti-Mainstream Ideological Component: The New Woman of the Age

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, women's field of activity was only the narrow field of the family, and the value of their existence was to "teach the children" and take care of the housework, and a very small part of their own value could only be realized through the association between the individual woman and the patriarchal family. A small part of their value can only be realized through the association between women and the patriarchal family. It can be said that the concept of the family was at the center of the concept of "femininity" at that time, and the first wave of the feminist movement between 1880 and 1920 brought the "New Woman" onto the stage of history. The rise of the "New Woman" was a challenge to and a questioning of the dominant ideology of the nineteenth century. The image of Carrie's sister in Dreiser's novel was shaped in the specific socio-historical context of the emerging consumer culture and the rise of the new woman in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, and the woman he portrayed in this novel not only has a modernity beyond the naturalistic genre, but also has a revolutionary nature beyond the dominant ideology, which we can find from the text of the reading of the relevant information.

In the beginning of the novel we can see that Sister Carrie, an innocent young girl leaves her hometown to realize her dream in the prosperous metropolis of Chicago. Upon arriving in Chicago, she stays with her sister Minnie's family, and what she sees is not a rich, fashionable, and comfortable life. Instead, she is dismayed by the poverty and the dullness of life in her sister's family, which epitomizes a male society based on traditional gender relations. Carrie notices the drastic change in her sister after she married, "She was now only seventeen years old, and though still hardy, was already a woman of wan description, whose view of life, influenced by her husband's, was becoming narrower and narrower in its views of happiness and duty." (Dreiser, 2002:25) Carrie's view of her sister Minnie is indicative of Dreiser's dissatisfaction with the dominant sense of traditional family.

In Carrie's later life, she suffered many setbacks. Initially, Carrie's desire to fulfill her desire for material prosperity had been pinned on men, but through hard work, she transformed herself from an ignorant country girl into a successful actress, from a country girl at the mercy of men who arrived in the big city to a self-reliant, financially independent "New Woman". No longer entrusting her fate to any man, Carrie has an independent career, and with her financial independence comes her personal independence. As Carrie rises through the ranks, she gradually realizes her own power and thus her true self-worth. This process is essentially a rewriting of the traditional notion of "femininity".

As contemporary critics have recognized, Carrie "is portrayed in the work as the strongest person in life. She is young, smart, healthy, and beautiful, with all the advantages of competition, and she is able to adjust her position in life, taking risks and competing, and grasping opportunities. Of course, this kind of success is typical of the American style and needs the American climate and soil" (Zhou Mingyan: 212). Undeniably, her success has its own limitations, but at that time, she was a woman who dared to pursue individuality liberation, actively seized opportunities, and adapted to social progress. Compared with her sister, Minnie, Mrs. Vance, and Hurstwood's wife and daughter in the novel, she can be regarded as a representative of the real new woman. Although her "degeneration" has been criticized by many critics, she has all the qualities of a "new woman", and she is a woman who stands on the tip of the wave of change in social consciousness and traditional morality.

The mainstream consciousness that cannot be surpassed: the shadow of patriarchal consciousness

Delisle's way of dealing with the characters more or less embodies the factors that cannot be surpassed in the mainstream ideology of women's view. In shaping the image of Carrie as a "New Woman", the author wants to go beyond the mainstream consciousness of that time, but at the same time we should also see that Delisle's view of women is not only a reflection of the mainstream consciousness, but also an expression of the mainstream consciousness. At the same time, we should also see the inherent contradiction in Dreiser's view of women: for Carrie, he reveals his hesitant moral stance at times, which makes Sister Carrie a text full of contradictions.

The ambivalence of Dreiser's view of women is first centered on the portrayal of Carrie. The recurring imagery of Carrie rocking in a rocking chair in the text is an apt metaphor for the author's view of women and even his moral stance. Like Carrie, Dreiser has two mirrors in front of him, one of which is his own judgmental standard, and the other is the value system of the mainstream society, so he has a hard time to choose between the "beautiful Carrie" and the "degraded Carrie". As depicted in the novel, Carrie "heard another voice, and she argued with it, appealed to it, asked it to be cool". (Deleuze, 2002:58).

Dreiser's engagement with the novel is driven as much by his convictions as by his deep understanding of human nature. His portrayal of Sister Carrie revolves around the basic biological needs of man, which downplays or even eliminates the role of traditional morality as a yardstick and condemnation. "Desire is the main driving force of Carrie's character in Dreiser's novel, and in this respect, the author tries his best to make the reader adopt a tolerant attitude towards Carrie's behaviors. At the end of the novel, the author does not arrange for Carrie to get everything she wants, but after achieving one goal after another, she feels more empty, unable to find the meaning of life, and thus loses herself. Until the author makes a helpless lament at the end of the novel: "Ah, the entanglements of life! We really can't see it clearly. It is not sin, but the desire for good, that often leads to wrong steps. It is not sin, but goodness, that tends to confound the unaccustomed and sentimental mind." (Dreiser, 2002:259) With such an ending, we can see Dreiser's inner conflict, he wants to see a successful and happy Carrie, but due to the pressure of the mainstream values of the time, he adopts a compromising stance to portray a "successful loser".

From the text, we can also find that Dreiser has a strong sense of male power. In "Sister Carrie," he makes every male appearance carry a certain amount of male privilege. From the handsome Duroy, to Heswall with his great talent, to the knowledgeable Ames, their appearances all make Carrie willing to "give her life". These men are more likely to make Carrie feel strongly about herself and often win the hearts of the women than Carrie, who is from a lowly, unproductive, and uneducated background. When Carrie first met Duroy, she thought he "must be a happy man ...... He is really a man." When she meets Hathaway she thinks he is "instinctively stronger". Talking with Ames "she thought it was good that a man could be like that." (P279) Carrie unconsciously has a sense that men are superior. In this, Dreiser makes Carrie measure herself against a man's standards at every turn. This reflects the prevailing thought of the time that men are born superior to women, that women should serve men, and that women should please men.