Theodore Dreiser’s ‚dual approach‘ to nature and the city in ‚Sister Carrie‘

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2011 im Fachbereich Amerikanistik – Literatur, Universität Erfurt, Veranstaltung: Reading Course: City and Literature, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: According to Giles, Theodore Dreiser s Sister Carrie set the model for the dual approach (24) to the literary description of the city: From the beginning [with Dreiser s Sister Carrie], the diverse body of American urban fiction has projected a dual response to the city as the embodiment of fascination and promise and as a corrupt, even brutal landscape (ibid. 35). Giles uses the term dual approach to point out that the authors of most city novels attribute both positive and negative characteristics to the city. While some of them emphasize one half of this dichotomy over the other (ibid. 24), Theodore Dreiser s approach to the description of the city in Sister Carrie clearly is of a dual nature, as he describes positive and negative attributes of the metropolis. Similarly, his approach to nature is also a dual one.