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Abstract: Both in Jennie Gerhardt and in Dreiser’s other novels, the reader can find the struggle will on those protagonists. On the one hand, they are confined to the strength of environment; on the other, they have strong life consciousness to struggle against their fate. Here Dreiser’s dilemma is shown to the reader. “Dreiser was caught between a world of dreams and a world of reality. He worked hard for social change and yet for most of his life he believed that man was the victim of an environment over which he had no control.”(Lehan 45) In this thesis, the author will analyze the contradiction between fatalism and struggle in the cases of the three main characters Jennie, Brander, and Lester.
Key words: fatalism, struggle, dilemma
中圖分类号:I106 文献标识码: A文章编号:1003-8809(2010)-08-0261-02
Jennie is girl with a natural temperament. She yearns for all the beautiful things, including romantic love. When chances arrive, she grasps them full of hope. She believes that Brander is a good man who deserves her love. His fatherly love, his charming manner, and his possibility of bringing her a respectful life all give her a beautiful dream. Jennie knows what it means to marry Brander. If that, she would be far away from poverty and so would her family. After that special night with Brander, Jennie thought there would be some change in her life. As described in the novel, “There were the possibilities of a charming and comfortable life. Suppose he did marry her. Oh, dear. She would go to Washington—that far-off place. And her father and mother, they would not need to work so hard any more. She could help them. And Bass, and Martha—she fairly glowed as she recounted to herself the possibilities of helpfulness.” (Dreiser 75)
Jennie thinks that her fate as well as her family’s fate will be changed from then on. However, her dream is mercilessly broken by Brander’s death. Her paying hasn’t been repaid. Fate seems to play a trick with Jennie. Her first struggle against it fails.
In her decision to accept Lester, Jennie completely shows her fatalism. She told her mother, “I’ve thought so long. I know how it will be. There really isn’t any other way. No one will ever have me as a wife—you know that. It might as well be this way.” (Dreiser 161) From this we can see that after Brander’s incidence, she thinks maybe she won’t have a normal marriage life any more. Now that another man is willing to love her, why shouldn’t she go with him? Jennie knows that marriage is a luxurious word to her, but as least she can seek love. And in a true sense, Jennie obtains her “family” life. Pizer says that “For several years, despite being socially ostracized by their neighbors, the ‘family’ of Lester, Jennie, Vesta, and old Gerhardt flourishes. The group has a ‘classic’ middle-class configuration: the prosperous businessman husband, the home loving and matronly wife, the charming child, and the crotchety but inwardly contented grandparent.” (Pizer 127)
After that Jennie had tried to urge Lester to marry her, though only once. She wrote a farewell letter to Lester and was ready to leave him. In her heart, she “had vaguely hoped that, in planning to go away, she was bringing about a condition under which Lester would have come after her and married her.”(Dreiser 251) But it quieted down because of Lester’s suggestion of moving to a new house, the Hyde Park house. Finally Jennie was doomed to lose Lester. This is verified by Lester’s leaving and marrying another woman. Jennie becomes the victim of the social convention. She goes back to her original point. Her fate is a tragedy, though she once was struggling against it.
In the case of Brander, his struggle against his fate is also in vain. Brander is in his fifties and has secured his career. He is “personally a fine man” (Dreiser 20) in the eyes of his senatorial peers. However, he is not satisfied with his present life. Having received his hard knocks and endured his losses, he is only an experienced, world-weary political warrior. “He could not help looking about him now and then and speculation upon the fact that he had no one to care for him. His chamber seemed strangely hollow at times—his own personality exceedingly disagreeable.” (Dreiser 20) In such a situation, Brander met Jennie, a girl who could bring him a new life. He decided to marry Jennie. But fate didn’t give him the chance. He died of heart attack suddenly. All disappeared.
Jennie’s second lover, Lester, is also stuck in such a dilemma. Lester has ever struggled against his fate, but yet hasn’t succeeded. As a man with a free will, Lester likes the feeling with Jennie and enjoys his out-of-wedlock life with her. But such situation is broken by his family’s discovery of their relationship. Lester tries to wrench his life with Jennie but he also fails.
After his sister’s unexpected visit, Lester’s relationship with Jennie was discovered. Soon the news was known by the whole family. First they sent Robert, Lester’s brother, to persuade him. Robert reasoned with Lester in the sense of morality, the family’s pride and even their father, but Lester argued with his brother and refused to leave Jennie. Then when he went home for his mother’s funeral, his father, old Kane, talked with him again. Actually the father wanted to give his son “one more chance—to make a plea, in fact, that he abandon his false way of living and put himself on a sound basis before the world. It wasn’t too late. He really had a great future.” (Dreiser 274) Once again, Lester defended his relationship with Jennie. Seeing that his persuasion didn’t take any effect on Lester, old Kane turned to the change of his will as a threat. He was disturbed by his father’s words, but he didn’t give up Jennie. He felt that there was leeway in this matter.
From the above we can see that Jennie, Brander and Lester are all struggling against their fate, but in the end none of them can escape the arrangement of it. Fatalism is shown by Dreiser here. And his dilemma is also embodied in the novel. According to Lehan, “Out of Dreiser’s romantic dilemma came the displaced hero: the man who has a place in the world but cannot find it. He lives in a world where men prey on each other, where strength and subtlety are all important, and where law and justice are often used by selfish men to restrain those who oppose them. He unwittingly aspires to goals that are transient and beyond his grasp. He is never satisfied with his origins—his family or his present position—and struggles for wealth and recognition. In more sensitive moments, he intuits the beauty of life, but this only makes him more discontent with himself and his materialistic society. He is concerned with mutability, with birds in flight, water in motion, and crowded cities where men sweep by like rivers to the sea. He longs for stability but is caught in the flux. He is a step behind himself, restless and yet with nowhere to go, duped by his own aspirations. He is, in a word, a victim: a victim of his temperament, a victim of time, a victim of a society what he cannot fully accept or totally reject, a victim of a world that is in constant struggle. Most of all, he is the victim of his romantic illusions: his belief in the possibility of self-fulfillment and purpose when life, in reality, is moving in a furious circle, the center holding all in balance, like a raging whirlpool going nowhere.” (Lehan 53)
References:
〔1〕Dreiser, Theodore. Jennie Gerhardt, New York: Harper & brothers, 1911.
〔2〕Geismar, Maxwell. American Moderns, New York: Hill and Wang Press, 1958.
〔3〕Lehan, Richard. Theodore Dreiser: His World and His Novel, Champaign: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.
〔4〕Pizer, Donald. The Novels of Theodore Dreiser: A Critical Study, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976.
〔5〕蔣道超,《德莱塞研究》,上海外语教育出版社,2003。
Key words: fatalism, struggle, dilemma
中圖分类号:I106 文献标识码: A文章编号:1003-8809(2010)-08-0261-02
Jennie is girl with a natural temperament. She yearns for all the beautiful things, including romantic love. When chances arrive, she grasps them full of hope. She believes that Brander is a good man who deserves her love. His fatherly love, his charming manner, and his possibility of bringing her a respectful life all give her a beautiful dream. Jennie knows what it means to marry Brander. If that, she would be far away from poverty and so would her family. After that special night with Brander, Jennie thought there would be some change in her life. As described in the novel, “There were the possibilities of a charming and comfortable life. Suppose he did marry her. Oh, dear. She would go to Washington—that far-off place. And her father and mother, they would not need to work so hard any more. She could help them. And Bass, and Martha—she fairly glowed as she recounted to herself the possibilities of helpfulness.” (Dreiser 75)
Jennie thinks that her fate as well as her family’s fate will be changed from then on. However, her dream is mercilessly broken by Brander’s death. Her paying hasn’t been repaid. Fate seems to play a trick with Jennie. Her first struggle against it fails.
In her decision to accept Lester, Jennie completely shows her fatalism. She told her mother, “I’ve thought so long. I know how it will be. There really isn’t any other way. No one will ever have me as a wife—you know that. It might as well be this way.” (Dreiser 161) From this we can see that after Brander’s incidence, she thinks maybe she won’t have a normal marriage life any more. Now that another man is willing to love her, why shouldn’t she go with him? Jennie knows that marriage is a luxurious word to her, but as least she can seek love. And in a true sense, Jennie obtains her “family” life. Pizer says that “For several years, despite being socially ostracized by their neighbors, the ‘family’ of Lester, Jennie, Vesta, and old Gerhardt flourishes. The group has a ‘classic’ middle-class configuration: the prosperous businessman husband, the home loving and matronly wife, the charming child, and the crotchety but inwardly contented grandparent.” (Pizer 127)
After that Jennie had tried to urge Lester to marry her, though only once. She wrote a farewell letter to Lester and was ready to leave him. In her heart, she “had vaguely hoped that, in planning to go away, she was bringing about a condition under which Lester would have come after her and married her.”(Dreiser 251) But it quieted down because of Lester’s suggestion of moving to a new house, the Hyde Park house. Finally Jennie was doomed to lose Lester. This is verified by Lester’s leaving and marrying another woman. Jennie becomes the victim of the social convention. She goes back to her original point. Her fate is a tragedy, though she once was struggling against it.
In the case of Brander, his struggle against his fate is also in vain. Brander is in his fifties and has secured his career. He is “personally a fine man” (Dreiser 20) in the eyes of his senatorial peers. However, he is not satisfied with his present life. Having received his hard knocks and endured his losses, he is only an experienced, world-weary political warrior. “He could not help looking about him now and then and speculation upon the fact that he had no one to care for him. His chamber seemed strangely hollow at times—his own personality exceedingly disagreeable.” (Dreiser 20) In such a situation, Brander met Jennie, a girl who could bring him a new life. He decided to marry Jennie. But fate didn’t give him the chance. He died of heart attack suddenly. All disappeared.
Jennie’s second lover, Lester, is also stuck in such a dilemma. Lester has ever struggled against his fate, but yet hasn’t succeeded. As a man with a free will, Lester likes the feeling with Jennie and enjoys his out-of-wedlock life with her. But such situation is broken by his family’s discovery of their relationship. Lester tries to wrench his life with Jennie but he also fails.
After his sister’s unexpected visit, Lester’s relationship with Jennie was discovered. Soon the news was known by the whole family. First they sent Robert, Lester’s brother, to persuade him. Robert reasoned with Lester in the sense of morality, the family’s pride and even their father, but Lester argued with his brother and refused to leave Jennie. Then when he went home for his mother’s funeral, his father, old Kane, talked with him again. Actually the father wanted to give his son “one more chance—to make a plea, in fact, that he abandon his false way of living and put himself on a sound basis before the world. It wasn’t too late. He really had a great future.” (Dreiser 274) Once again, Lester defended his relationship with Jennie. Seeing that his persuasion didn’t take any effect on Lester, old Kane turned to the change of his will as a threat. He was disturbed by his father’s words, but he didn’t give up Jennie. He felt that there was leeway in this matter.
From the above we can see that Jennie, Brander and Lester are all struggling against their fate, but in the end none of them can escape the arrangement of it. Fatalism is shown by Dreiser here. And his dilemma is also embodied in the novel. According to Lehan, “Out of Dreiser’s romantic dilemma came the displaced hero: the man who has a place in the world but cannot find it. He lives in a world where men prey on each other, where strength and subtlety are all important, and where law and justice are often used by selfish men to restrain those who oppose them. He unwittingly aspires to goals that are transient and beyond his grasp. He is never satisfied with his origins—his family or his present position—and struggles for wealth and recognition. In more sensitive moments, he intuits the beauty of life, but this only makes him more discontent with himself and his materialistic society. He is concerned with mutability, with birds in flight, water in motion, and crowded cities where men sweep by like rivers to the sea. He longs for stability but is caught in the flux. He is a step behind himself, restless and yet with nowhere to go, duped by his own aspirations. He is, in a word, a victim: a victim of his temperament, a victim of time, a victim of a society what he cannot fully accept or totally reject, a victim of a world that is in constant struggle. Most of all, he is the victim of his romantic illusions: his belief in the possibility of self-fulfillment and purpose when life, in reality, is moving in a furious circle, the center holding all in balance, like a raging whirlpool going nowhere.” (Lehan 53)
References:
〔1〕Dreiser, Theodore. Jennie Gerhardt, New York: Harper & brothers, 1911.
〔2〕Geismar, Maxwell. American Moderns, New York: Hill and Wang Press, 1958.
〔3〕Lehan, Richard. Theodore Dreiser: His World and His Novel, Champaign: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.
〔4〕Pizer, Donald. The Novels of Theodore Dreiser: A Critical Study, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976.
〔5〕蔣道超,《德莱塞研究》,上海外语教育出版社,2003。