美国文学论文作业

课程设计（论文）

从弗洛伊德心理理论看《美国悲剧》中萝贝塔的悲剧性

姓 名： 周晶

专 业： 英日双语

班 级： 41300805

学 号： 4130080511

摘 要

美国自然主义作家西奥多•德莱塞，以其锋利的笔锋，向读者描绘了美国社会的种种问题，抨击了美国社会高雅面纱下围绕金钱而产生的种种丑恶现象。其作品以其史无前例的大胆写实为美国文学在现实主义协作的发展开辟了道路，也为作家在美国文学界乃至世界文学界赢得了极高的荣誉。

本文通过介绍作者的生平，以及用弗洛伊德理论分析德莱赛的《美国悲剧》中的人物萝贝塔的悲剧成因，说明在美国拜金主义，享乐主义和个人主义盛行的社会里，人在本能和社会环境的驱使下不免地要往上爬，追求物质上的满足，实现心中的梦。但在美国的社会环境下，结果往往是悲剧的。萝贝塔的悲剧，不仅是她个人的悲剧，也是美国众多女性的悲剧的写照。

关键词：悲剧 萝贝塔 弗洛伊德心理理论 美国梦

ABSTRACT

A pioneer of naturalism in American literature, Theodore Dreiser equally

deserves a place in American literature for his vigorous attack on the genteel tradition and his long and active interest in American social problem. Showing the readers an actual American society that is maintained with money worship, hedonism, individualism, his works make the readers so suffering and so astonished that some readers could hardly bear.

In this paper, a brief introduction is given to Dreiser’s life and the critical story of An American Tragedy, and then attempts to make a Freudian study of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy so as to summarize and then the causes of Roberta’s tragedy are analyzed. Through analysis the real origin of the tragedy is exposed to be the evil capitalist social system, and Roberta’s tragedy is also the American females’ tragedy.

Key Words：tragedy Roberta Freudian study American Dream.

目 录

1 引言………………………………………………………………….5

2 作者和小说简介………………………………………………………….6

2.1西奥多•德莱塞的简介………………………………………….7 2.2《美国悲剧》的简介……………………………………. 8 3 从弗洛伊德理论逐步分析萝贝塔的悲剧……………….. 9

3.1 萝贝塔的命运………………………………………………..9 3.2萝贝塔悲剧产生的外部原因………………………………..10 3.3 萝贝塔悲剧产生的根本原因………………………………..11 3.4从弗洛伊德心理透视萝贝塔的悲剧………………………………12

结束语……………………………………………………….13

..

CCOONNTTEENNTTSS

1 Introduction…………………………………………………5 2 The Author and the Novel………………………………….6

2.1 A Brief Introduction to Theodore Dreiser……………………………7

2.2 A Brief Introduction of an American Tragedy……………………….8

3 Analysis of Roberta's Tragedy on Freudian study…………9

3. 1 Roberta’s Destiny …………………………………………………...9 3.2 The Analysis of Roberta’s Tragedy on the External Causes……….. 10 3.3 The Original Causes of the Tragedy…………………………………11 3.4 Roberta's Tragedy on Freudian study……………………………12

Conclusion………………………………………………………13

1Introduction

Dreiser, who is very famous for the principal American exponents of literary

naturalism, is one of the most influential authors in American literary history during the 20th century. As a great naturalistic writer, Dreiser does not forget the basic principle of naturalism. It is easy to find that the man characters’ personality in American Tragedy is a sexual athlete and a man of elemental force who rises to a dominant position in business and society led by Roberta’s tragedy. It expresses the depth sympathy in his novels to Roberta and Clyde, which are drawing people’s attentions, so the novel is regarded as the greatest novel in American literary. American Tragedy based on an actual case tells the story of a social tragedy, in which a tiny successful young man killed his lover, sentenced to death at last. The novel highly criticizes the America legal system and expresses the course of the tragedy. Among all the comments on the causes of the tragedy, Charles Walcutl A. Waltonlitz, specifically makes an analysis about the causes of the tragedy. His idea is unique and profound for us to study. American Dream makes many young people lose their direction even lives.

Most of the researches on American Tragedy are profound, and many theories have reasoned on the causes of Roberta’s tragedy that American Dream and American capitalist social system are the real origin of the tragedy.

Roberta’s death stimulates researchers to study the cause of tragedy. At the same time, the novel arouses people’s attention of feminism. In 18th century, feminism was not popular, and many women had no equal rights. Through analysis of Roberta's tragedy, we can get more knowledge of female in the society.

2 The Author and the Novel

Theodore Dreiser is one of the most influential American writers in the early twentieth century．As the masterpiece of Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy deserves such a good name：the gem of western culture．It reflects the reality and maladies of the contemporary American society in Dreiser’s time and it brings both fame and wealth for Dreiser．There has been plenty of criticism on Theodore Dreiser．But most of them focus on the naturalist feature of his work and some others pay attention to the archetype of the murder case．However ,the psychological analysis of An American Tragedy is scarce．

2.1 A Brief Introduction to Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was the very first important American author of non- English stock, although United States had already more than half population of later immigrant and their children. His father was a German immigrant, and was mostly unemployed mill worker. So, his childhood was marked with poverty.

Dreiser was a great naturalism writer. He wrote his work on the basic principle of naturalism. He and his works of the real life do not attack the nation’s puritanical moral code; they ignore it. Then, his attitude stocked the genteel public probably more than the others. Because he was born from poverty, and he had harsh experience of poverty, suffered enough distress from unemployment and poverty. He had enough knowledge and deep sympathy.

2.2 A Brief Introduction of an American Tragedy

An American Tragedy tells about a tragic story. The story was based on a popular murder case. In the story, Clyde was a less successful young man, driven by the desire

for sex and money to murder his lover, and he did that in order to marry wealth. Finally, he was convicted and executed to death. Whatever of social and spirit, he was victim. From the book, Dreiser expressed a degree of critical and commercial success. There are three books in the novel. In the first book, the author describes Clyde’s life in Kansas. He was born in a poor missionary family; Clyde Griffiths lived a poverty-stricken life since his childhood. He always had to sing hymn of praise in American street everyday with his family. As he grew up, he was more and more tired of and even hated singing hymn of praise in the street with his family, and he was so sensitive that he always felt that the auditors were looking down upon them. In a word, his poor family made him painful. So once he had grown old enough to make money, he threw away that lifestyle. In Green- Davidson, he was deeply impressed by the striking contrast between Rich and Poor, and he avidly wanted to rise into this American upper class that seemed to offer him the only hope of self-realizations.

3 Analysis of Roberta's Tragedy on Freudian study

Roberta excels Hortense in almost every aspect, such appearance and intelligence。She’s not as indulgent as Hortense in her daily life and she is a traditional well conventional gild before her acquaintance Clyde．The background of Roberta closely resembles that of Clyde．She too has been locked up by poverty and depressed by the realization of her lacking in skill and experience。Besides，she feels she is all outsider of the mainstream of American Lire, surrounded by her incompetent and inefficient parents Although Roberta anticipates bettering her life by getting an education and by mating Well she earl, due to her unfavorable upbringing, she is deprived of the equivalent opportunity as some youth to realize her ambition．Then she is involved in a romantic Relationship with her supervisor, which is forbidden in this factory, hoping such union will help her to make her dream come true。When her friend Grace nails a lie offer about Clyde, she resents her friend and views her friend as a burden and hindrance．She isn’t quite straighter mother about why she moves out of her first room．Tortured by her inner mental conflicts between the dilemma faced

also by Hamlet,“to be or not to be'’，she deceives even herself as to why she selects a room in the new house downstairs and with an outside door．Roberta is not simply a victim of seduction and vanity, instead，she is also a victim of her unconscious id。She takes delight in the pleasure of sexual love, the same as Clyde，and takes no care of her moral criteria and yields herself wholly to him each night，dreaming“recklessly and wildly of the joy of it’ each day.

3. 1 Roberta’s Destiny

Roberta Alden was a daughter of Titus Alden, a farmer-of near Blitz, which was a small town in Mimi co Country, some fifty miles north. The father of her father was also a farmer. Her father was also an unsuccessful person at forty-eight. He was still living in a very old and much in need of repair house which he inherited from his father. The desire was stronger and stronger. And then, he became apathy to Roberta. Roberta did not know why his attitude became so apathy and strange. Without any other way to solve the problem, Roberta pleaded Clyde to marry her, but Clyde wanted to marry Sondra for better and richer life. He protracted to agree again and again. Worrying of losing Sondra and his reputation in Lycurgus, he pretended to agree, but in his mind, he was planning to kill Roberta.

Roberta’s tragedy could be ascribed to herself. She was very naive and easy to believe someone else. Roberta’s dream was established on the love that she could together with Clyde. She had not thinking independently. So, she obeyed Clyde's meaning, no longer requiring him. Roberta thought that Clyde was her god. Whatever Clyde wanted to do, she would do her best to satisfy him. And then, her personality caused her tragedy.

3.2 The Analysis of Roberta’s Tragedy on the External Causes

Roberta Herself Was Partly Blamed for Her Tragedy. It seems unfair for Roberta to be blamed for her tragedy, but she really should be. Although born in a poor farm

family, Roberta was very charming and quite clever. She deserved to have better life. Since her childhood, she was dreaming to conquer a man to have a better life that was different from her farm life. With this good dream, she even could not insist on her refusal for Clyde’s pursuit. She had already lost something guided by the dream of bettering herself by marrying Clyde. She even dared not insist on her refusing for Clyde’s unreasonable requirement, even though she knew that she was in the way of danger and maybe even in the way of destruction. So, in her tragedy, she was partly blamed. In American society, the boundary between the poor and rich was very clear. It was impossible for the poor people to enter the upper class. Just because of her unrealistic dream, she was finally pregnant easily and lost her life. Roberta was even told that the man of the rich family was not keeping their words, but she could not resist Clyde’s sweet talk. In a word, she was very foolish. She should keep herself from having sex with Clyde and getting pregnant. Because of her vanity and unrealistic dream, the tragedy happened.

Second, because of his selfishness, when Roberta was pregnant, he refused to go with Roberta together to the doctor’s for help. At last, to disengage himself from Roberta, he even planned to kill her. Although he did not carry on his plan at the critical moment, he did not give a hand to Roberta in the accident when Roberta was in critical danger and needed help very much. It was his very coldness and selfishness that caused Roberta's tragedy. Clyde was in the interest of realizing his wealth and rank then dreamed to kill his lover. His mentality was distorted by the social desire. He should be sentenced to death.

3.3 The Original Causes of the Tragedy

Although Roberta herself and Clyde should be blamed for her tragedy, in the final analysis, the original causes of Roberta's tragedy are the evil capitalist social system. Why did both Roberta and Clyde have the unrealistic dream and even lose their lives for the dream? To find out the answer for these questions, we have to mention the prevalent culture and the American society.

These spirits dated from the English Religion Reformation. Coming into 20th century, the industry achieved very great success, and the goods were produced in mass. The content of American dream had a little changed. Although the dream of greatness, wealth and success had not changed yet, the desire of consuming as much as possible had taken place of the sobriety. The young generation paid more attention to the practice and the comfortable even luxurious material life, while more neglecting the traditional virtue and dogma than the generation of their parents did. The consuming culture and the hedonism prevailed over the whole American in the 20th century. In such surrounding, lead by these ideas, the young generation could not help pursuit money, rich material life and the sex.

3.4 Roberta's Tragedy on Freudian study

From the above analysis we can see Roberta ascents to have sexual relationship with Clyde for at least three reasons．First of all，she allows herself to do this because she dreams to raise herself out of poverty and Clyde gives her the illusion that k is rich and he is from superior social sphere．Her egoism gets well illustrated in her relationship with Clyde．From their first encounter, she never forgets that he is a Griffiths and supervisor, roles which make him attractive but also formidable and risky．Just as Clyde envisions Sondra as a doorway to paradise of wealth,position,and comfort，SO Roberta perceives Clyde， a channel to getaway from her poor maidenhood as well as her humble and unaccomplished work．Clyde's superior position，however, constitutes a danger as well as a hope for her．If she succeeds in getting out of her poverty, Roberta can at least solve her food，clothes and housing problems，and thus the fundamental human desires get satisfied．Therefore，it is the id that causes her to have such a wish．Second, though Roberta is somewhat hesitant to allow Clyde to come too close to her ,later after their first intimacy, Roberta enjoys herself as much as Clyde enjoys himself ,She has the normal human desire and her id enjoys sexual delight extremely．If Hortense satisfies her wish to show an impressive appearance in her relationship with Clyde,Roberta contents her sexual organ in her relationship with Clyde．And boom of these two kinds of satisfaction are the different

forms of the egoism，or the id。Last but not the least，Roberta allows herself to have an intimate relationship with Clyde because she loves him。Since the id is chaos，a cauldron of seething excitement, it asks form ore than one or two pleasures．Actually, it requires the satisfaction of all pleasures．Apart from the basic desires，namely, the survival instinct, human beings are emotional creatures and they want to get the attention and love from the ones that they are fond of：If they are bathed in love without any anxiety, the person must be extremely happy, thus，his or her id or egoism to pursue pleasure succeeds．all，Roberta is the embodiment of the id in this novel and in a sense；she is the id of herself, of C1yde as well as that of her society．Neither Hortense nor Roberta takes control of their drives to obey the social conventions．For both Freud and Dreiser, the id is more powerful than the ego．Freud holds that the pleasure principle frequently defeats the reality principle and hurts people in various aspects． e pleasure principle transcends the reality principle because it serves as the avenue to release one’s libido and it exits persistently and permanently．Hence, egoism or the id，is the most powerful part in Freudian psychology since it adapts to the pleasure principle．Just take Roberta as all example，she knows clearly that it is impossible to keep all above-board relationship with Clyde，and he maybe doesn’t bother himself to take tile trouble to marry her．While she just cannot behave herself and her id gets the upper hand due to the above three pleasures which their relationship can bring her．

Conclusion

Naturalism is the brief writing style that man is shaped of hereditary and environment force beyond his control. In particular, naturalism is the brief that man’s inner sense of willingness toward a good or toward an evil is an illusion merely.(Donld,2003,) Thus, for the naturalist it makes no praise the action, they are only doing what comes naturally to them. As a novelist, Theodore Dreiser was the sort of naturalist who felt an extraordinary need to explain things, to represent his characters motives and actions as cogent as possible. He offered many instances scientifically--based explanations of their determinism, and even corrected popular

misconceptions as to the cause and significances of human endeavor. An American Tragedy tended to emphasize that female should be independent and could not reply on men. Women are not accessories, but dominate positions in the society. If a female is too weak in mind, she would become a tragedy in the society. Her tragedy destined to happen at that time.

In American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser portrayed his characters Clyde and Roberta. Whatever they like, in American capitalist, they did it what they were forced anything, just persuade what is insight in their mind. Their tragedy is not very special; it is the American's common tragedy. As Roberta is just one of the typical instances of such female tragedy, we can find a lot of problems existing in the American females. Roberta's tragedy is also the American female's tragedy.

The novel shows the greatest attractive for over the world. Although there are many criticisms about Dreiser and his novel American Tragedy, it can not deny the fact that the celebrated influence spread not only American literature but also all over the world.