2. They are concerned with the less elegant aspects of life. Its typical settings are the slum, the sweatshop, the factory and the farm. They represented the life of the lower class truthfully and broke into such forbidden regions as violence, sex and death.
Stephen Crane （克莱恩，1871-1900）
1. He was a pioneer writing in the naturalistic tradition, died at only 27.
2. He is one of the first to treat slums, prostitution, alcoholism and other unpleasant subjects which are associated with the school of naturalism.
3. He was the first American to portray war realistically from the point of view of the individual soldier.
4. His basic theme: environment and heredity will defeat man.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (街头女郎梅季) (first uncompromising naturalists’ novel in Am.
It relates the story of a good woman’s downfall and destruction in a slum environment. She has been a rose in a mud-puddle. She has been struggling all her life to escape the mud-puddle prison but in vain. As Crane says, environment is a tremendous thing for an insignificant human being to battle against.
The Red Badge of Courage （红色英勇勋章）：A boy-soldier is enlisted and sent to the front. In face of danger, he is seized with panic, and then runs away. But on the way, another frightened soldier shoots him in the head. When he returns to the troops, he is regarded as a hero because of the injury in the head, which is taken as red badge.
Comment: Against the romantic view of war as a symbol of courage and heroism, Crane talks about war in alarming honesty. He looks into man’s primitive emotions and tried to tell the elemental truth about human life. War in The Red Badge of Courage is a plain slaughter-house. There is nothing like bravery or heroism on the battlefield. If there is any, it is a fear of death, cowardice, the natural instinct of man to run from danger.
Other works: Open Boat (海上扁舟)
Blue Hotel （蓝色旅馆）
Frank Morris (莫里斯1870-1902)
MC Teague （麦克提格）
A Tragedy of a dentist, Mc Teague.It is a classic case of study of the inevitable effect of environment and heredity on human lives. Mc Teague is an unschooled crude dentist. He is born and brought up in humble surroundings and his father is alcoholic. Due to greed, envious competition, he kills his wife with a thick stick.
His trilogy on the production, distribution and consumption of wheat:
The Octopus ( 鱆鱼The first and the best one )
The pit (深渊)
Summary of The Octopus:
It is based on an actual clash in 1880 between farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and the South Pacific railroad. The land is assigned to the railroad company, and then rented to the farmers. But the railroad raises the price of the land. After that the freight rate is also raised so much that the farmers are ruined altogether. All of the farmers are crushed under the wheels of the railroad. Some of them die, others go mad.
Comments:
1. The railroad is compared to octopus with millions of tentacles. It illustrates how social and economics conditions ruined the lives of innocent, powerless people.
2. But Norris did not seem to blame the railroad officials for the tragedies. To him, conditions, natural forces, not men were responsible for what had happened, and the laws of nature could ruin an insignificant farmer as well as a financial superman. (e.g, the head of the railroad says:“you are dealing with forces, young man, when you speak of wheat and railroad, not with men. The wheat is one force, the railroad, another, and there is the law that governs them—supply and demand. Men only have little to do in the whole business.”)
3.The novel reveals his determinist view clearly.
Theodore Dreiser (西奥多.德莱塞1871-1945)
Born in Chicago, his childhood was spent in extreme poverty. He had a strong sympathy for communism, and joined the Communist Party shortly before his death.
Cowperwood trilogy: （欲望三部曲about the life of Cowperwood as a businessman）:
The Financier （金融家）
The Titan （巨人）
The Stoic （斯多葛）
His autobiographical work: The Genius （天才）
An American Tragedy （美国悲剧）
His masterpiece: Sister Carrie （嘉丽妹妹）
Summary:
A country girl comes to Chicago to look for a better life. On the train, she gets acquainted with a traveling salesman, Drouet. She first stays with her sister. However, her sister is too poor to keep her. Then when she is seriously ill, Drouet comes to her rescue and takes her home. Later, her beauty attracts Drouet’s friend, Hurswood. He deserts his comfortable home and family, and forces her to elope with him. For sometime, they experience terrible poverty. Sister Carrie goes out to work on the stage and becomes successful. But Hurswood proves himself to be unfit. He tries different jobs but fails. Then Sister Carrie deserts him. On a cold winter night, he commits suicide.
Comment:
1. It presents a new moral fiber: man is an animal in the jungle, driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence, only the fittest survived. Therefore, existence is the most essential, the only instinct of man. In such circumstance, man has no power to assert his will, so man doesn’t have to be responsible for his moral activity.
2. As for Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh to her. Alone and helpless, she moves along like a mechanism driven by desire and catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence. She is a feather in the wind, and always at the mercy forces she cannot understand, let alone to control. She does not seem to possess what may be called a moral fiber.
Minor authors
Edwin Arlington Robinson (poet)
Man against the Sky （天边人影）
Jack London（杰克.伦敦）
Coming front the bottom of society, his works are a penetrating criticism of America.
The Call of the Wild （野性的呼唤）
White Fang （白牙）
The Sea wolf （海狼）
Martin Eden (马丁.伊登autobiography)
O Henry
Short story writer. His work is full of humor, usually with an unexpected ending. His stories are amusing, flat, biting, and filled with irony, sentiment and pathos. He shows sympathy for the socially low.
The Gift of Magi （麦琪的礼物）
The Cop and the Anthem （警察和赞美诗）
Upton Sinclair（辛克莱）
The Jungle（丛林）It reveals the inhumanity and total absence of hygiene in Chicago’s Packingtown.It describes an inhuman environment in a sweatshop Where meat is processed in a dirty way in Chicago. It was written with blood, tears.
Chapter 11
The 1920s (The period after World War I)
Imagism Pound
Background
1. The U.S made a great deal of money in the war and became a lot richer, so that appeared an economic boom. There was a feeling that there was money everywhere. It was “the dollar’s decade”.
2. Many young people became the upper class generation since they got a lot of money from stock market. The richer they became, the more immoral they were, and old moral codes were breaking down.
3. People went into war with an unusual amount of enthusiasm, inspired by the idea of making the world safe for democracy. In the end, they found they were deceived. Then, excitement subsided to make way for disillusionment.
4. The loss of faith was intensified by the development of modern science. Without faith, man has the sense of life being fragmented, chaotic and disjunctive. Without faith, man no longer felt secure, happy and hopeful in this world, hence, the feeling of gloom and despair. In short, people found themselves living in a spiritual wasteland. The basic tone was disappointment, uncertainty and pessimism.
