An American Tragedy解析

Unit10 American literature 重难点解析（1）词汇词组详解1.shabby adj.破旧的，寒酸的（1）肮脏破旧的，破烂不堪的a shabby old hat破旧的帽子（2）衣衫褴褛的，寒酸的a shabby old man一位衣衫褴褛的老人（3）卑鄙的，无耻的，吝啬的，不公平的What a shabby trick, driving off and leaving me to walk home!多卑劣的恶作剧，把车开走了让我走路回家！2.do up（1）固定住，扣上，系上This skirt does up at the back.这条裙子是在后面系扣的。

（2）do oneself up梳妆打扮，化妆（3）do sth. up用……固着……He never bothers to do his jacket up.他总是不愿意系外衣的扣子。

（4）修理，重新装饰装修（房子、房间等）If we decide to buy the cottage,we’ll have to do it up.我们若决定购买这座别墅，就得重新进行装修。

3.worn adj. 破烂的，损坏的（1）（经使用或穿戴）破烂的，损坏的These shoes are looking rather worn.这双鞋子不成样子了。

（2）（指人）看起来精疲力竭的She came back worn and worried.她回来时既疲惫又忧虑。

4.let down使某人失望，不帮助Tom will never let you down,you can always depend on him to help you. 汤姆将永不会置你与不顾，你永远可以依赖他的帮助。

5.at length终于，最后（1）At length,the bus arrived,forty minutes late.公共汽车终于来了，晚了四十分钟。

走遍美国文本及笔记3-3第一篇：走遍美国文本及笔记3-3ACT 3-1 “你很幸运有关心你的家人。

” 你很幸运有关心你的家人。

你很幸运有关心你的家人【故事梗概】故事梗概】火车到达了纽约市。

Eisa 和祖父 Malcolm 互相告别。

[On the Amtrak train later that day.The train is arriving in New York City.] Voice: Ladies and gentlemen, Amtrak is happy to announce our arrival in New York City.The train will be stopping in five minutes.Please check to be sure you have your belongings.And have a good stay in the Big Apple.Thank you.Eisa: Well, here we are.It was so nice meeting you, Mr.Stewart.Grandpa: And nice meeting you, too, Mrs.Tobin.Please look us up.We're in the phone book.Dr.Philip Stewart, in Riverdale.Eisa: Your son? Grandpa: That's right.And have a good time in New York.Eisa: And don't be so independent.You're very lucky to have a caring family.【语言点精讲】语言点精讲】1.Amtrak Amtrak 是火车公司的名字，一般译为“美国火车公司”。

英美文学选读自考题模拟17(总分：100.00，做题时间：90分钟)一、Ⅰ.Multiple Choice(总题数：40，分数：40.00)1.The belief of the eighteenth-century neoclassicists in England led them to seek the following EXCEPT ______.（分数：1.00）A.proportionB.graceC.harmonyD.spirit √解析：[解析] 本题主要考查的知识点为新古典主义时期作家们的创作追求。

新古典主义者们对文学作品的观点使该时期的作家在创作时寻求表达与措辞上的协调、统一、和谐与典雅。

2."Graveyard School" writers are the following sentimentalists of ______.（分数：1.00）A.James Thomson and William Collins √B.William Collins and William BlakeC.Robert Burns and James ThomsonD.Thomas Jackson and James Thomson解析：[解析] 本题主要考查的知识点为古墓派诗人的成员。

感伤派诗人，或曰“古墓派诗人”有詹姆斯·汤姆森、威廉·考林斯和威廉·柯柏等。

3.The most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English is Samson Agonistes by ______.（分数：1.00）A.John Milton √B.William BlakeC.Henry FieldingD.William Wordsworth解析：[解析] 本题主要考查的知识点为《力士参孙》的作者。

美国文学1.殖民地时期及独立革命战争时期的美国文学Philip Freneau（菲利普﹒弗瑞诺）(1)He was considered as the “Poet of the American revolution” as the most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century. (2)He was a satirist, a bitter polemicist. (3)He wrote many poems encouraging revolution and encouraging the glory that would be won by overcoming the British.The Wild Honey Suckle 《野金银花》The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人的殡葬地》The British Ship《英国囚船》The Rising Glory of America 《美洲光辉的兴起》(1)The Wild Honey Suckle is Freneau’s best lyric (2)It anticipated the 19th—century use of simple nature imagery.The Indian Burying Ground anticipated romantic primitivism and the celebration of the “Noble Savage”.Thomas Jefferson（托马斯﹒杰弗逊）The Declaration of Independence《独立宣言》(1)The Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776. (2)It not only announced the birth of a new nation, but also expounded a philosophy of human freedom. (3)It lists 13 cruelties committed by the King of Britain. (4)The famous lines are: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”(5) Thomas Jefferson’s thought was inspired by the thoughts of John Locke.浪漫主义时期的美国文学Calvinism（加尔文主义）(1)Calvinism refers to the religious teachings of John Calvin and his followers. (2) Calvin taught that only certain persons, the elect, were chosen by God to be saved, and these could be saved only by God’s grace. (3) Calvinism forms the basis for the doctrines and practices of the Huguenots, Puritans, Presbyterians, and the Reformed churches.American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义）(1) American Romanticism is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature.(2) It was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the feelings ,intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense. They emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group. They affirmed the inner life of the self, and cherished strong interest in the past, the wild, the remote, the mysterious and the strange. They stressed the element “Americanness” in their works.(3)It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Gra ss. (4) Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance.” (5) American Romantici sts include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, WilliamCullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others.Transcendentalism（超验主义）(1) Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Over—soul, and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self—reliant. (2)New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.Free verse（自由体诗歌）(1)Free verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conventional rules of meter.(2) Free verse was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. (3)Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate instead the free rhythms of natural speech. (4)Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is, perhaps, the most notable example.Symbol（象征）(1) Symbol means an act, a person, a thing, or a spectacle that stands for something else, usually something less palpable than the named symbol. (2) The relationship between the symbol and its referent is not often one of simple equivalence. Allegorical symbols usually express a neater equivalence with what they stand for than the symbols found in modern realistic fiction.Theme（主题）(1) Theme means the unifying point or general idea of a literary work. (2) It provides an answer to such questions as “What is the work about”(3)Each literary work carries its own theme or themes. For example, King Lear has many themes, among which are blindness and madness.现实主义与自然主义时期的美国文学American Naturalism(美国自然主义)The American Naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.American Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.Darwinism(达尔文主义)Darwinism is a term that comes from Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory.Darwinist think that those who survive in the world are the fittest and those who fail to adapt themselves to the environment will perish. They believe that man has evolved from lower forms of life. Humans are special not because God created them in His image, but because they have successfully adapted to changing environmental conditions and have passed on their survival-making characteristics genetically.Influenced by this theory, some American naturalist writers apply Darwinism as an explanation of human nature and social reality.Local Colorists(乡土作家)Generally speaking, the writing of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town.Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historian of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions. They worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the locale.Major local colorists include Hamlin Garland, Mark Twain , Kate Chopin, etc.Theodore Dreiser(西奥多·德莱塞)He is generally acknowledged as one of America’s literary naturalists.Works Sister Carrie《嘉莉妹妹》(1) Sister Carrie tells about a poor country girl (Carrie Meeber) who goesto Chicago to pursue the American Dream.(2) The novel shows Dreiser’s naturalistic view about life by illustratingthe purposelessness of life.(3) The dominant symbol of the novel is the rocking chair that is the rocking chair that is indicative of the uncertainty of life.Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》Trilogy of Desire《欲望》三部曲a. The Financier《金融家》b. The Titan《巨人》c. The Stoic《斯多葛》The Genius 《天才》An American Tragedy 《美国的悲剧》(1) An American Tragedy is Dreiser’s greatest work and the title of theBook implies Dreiser intention to tell us that it is the social pressurethat makes Clyde’s downfall inevitable.(2) Clyde’s tragedy is a tragedy that depends upon the American socialsystem which encouraged people to pursue the “dream of success ” atall costs.Sherwood Anderson (舍伍德·安德森)He has been called the first of America’s “psychological writers” because he first explored the motivations and frustrations of his fictional characters in terms of Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychology.He tremendously influenced such writers as Hemingway and Faulkner.Works Winesburg, Ohio《小镇畸人》(1) Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of 23 interrelated stories ofsamll-town life. These stories sound morbid and grotesque, butUnderneath them runs a strong desire to communicate, and love andbe loved.(2) It won the author a foremost position in contemporary Americanliterary.现代时期的美国文学The Lost Generation (迷惘的一代)The Lost Generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World War I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.The three best-know representatives of Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.Others usually included among the list are Sherwood Anderson, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Ford Maddox Ford and Zelda Fitzgerald.Imagism (意象派诗歌)Imagism came into being in Britain ans U.S. around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles:i) direct treatment of subject matter;ii) economy of expression;iii) as regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome.Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem.The Beat Generation (垮掉的一代)The members of the Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy ofnon-conformity and for its non-conforming style.The major beat writings are Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. Howl became the manifesto of the Beat Generation.American Dream (美国梦)American Dream refers to the dream of material success, in which one, regardless of social status, acquires wealth and gains success by working hard and good luck.In literature, the theme of American Dream recurs. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby comes from the west to the east with the dream of material success. By bootlegging and other illegal means he fulfilled his dream but ended up being killed. The novel tells the shattering of American Dream rather than its success.Expressionism (表现主义)Expressionism refers to a movement in Germany early in the 20th century, in which a number of painters sought to avoid the representation of external reality and, instead, to project a highly personal or subjective vision of the world.Expressionism is a reaction against realism or naturalism, aiming at presenting a post-war world violently distorted.Works noted for expressionism include: Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, etc..In a further sense, the term is sometimes applied to the belief that literary works are essentially expressions of their own authors’ moods and thoughts; this has been the dominant assumption about literature since the rise of Romanticism.Feminism (女权主义)(1) Feminism incorporates both a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality.(2) In general, feminism is the ideology of women’s liberation based on the belief that women suffer injustice because of their sex. Under this broad umbrella various feminists offer differing analyses of the causes, or agents, of female oppression.(3) Definitions of feminism by feminists tend to be shaped by their training, ideology or race. So, for example, Marxist and Socialist feminists stress the interaction within feminism of class with gender and focus on social distinctions between men and women. Black feminists argue much more for an integrated analysis which can unlock the multiple systems of oppression.Hemingway Code Hero (海明威式英雄)Hemingway Hero, also called code hero, is one who, wounded but strong, more sensitive, enjoys the pleasures of life (sex, alcohol, sport) in face of ruin and death, and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.Barnes in The Sun Also Rises, Henry in A Farewell to Arms and Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea are typical of Hemingway Hero.Harlem Renaissance (哈莱姆文艺复兴)（1）Harlem Renaissance refers to a period of outstanding literary vigor and creativity that occurred in the United States during the 1920s.（2）The Harlem Renaissance changed the images of literature created by many black and white American writers. New black images were no longer obedient and docile, instead they showed a new confidence and racial pride.(3) The leading figures are Langston Hughs, James Weldon Johnson, Wallace Thurman, etc.. Impressionism (印象主义)Impressionism is a style of painting that gives the impression made by the subject on the artist without much attention to details. Writers accepted the same conviction that the personal attitudes and moods of the writer were legitimate elements in depicting character or setting or action. Briefly, it is a style of literature characterized by the creation of general impressions and moods rather than realistic moods.现代时期的美国文学Ezra Pound(1) He was identified as the father of modern American poetry and the most influential leader of the Imagist Movement.(2) He had an enormous influence on the modernist writers in Britain and America after WWII.Works The Cantos《诗章》In a Station of the Metro 《在地铁站里》(1) In a Station of the Metro serves as a typical example of the Imagist ideas.(2) The one-image poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station.(3) “Apparition” suggests a visible appearance of something not present, and especially of a dead person. Here the faces of people in the subway station are compared to petals on a wet, black bough.A Pact 《盟约》(1) A Pact is a poem in which Pound started to find some agreement between “Whitmanesque” free verse, which he had attacked for its carelessness in composition.(2) In the poem “broke the new wood” means that Whitman made experiments with the conventions of traditional poetry. “commerce” means the exchange of views or attitudes. The poem indicates that Pound would like to learn from the free verse and show respect to Whitman.。

Appreciation of An American TragedyAbstract:An American Tragedy is one of Theodore Dreiser 's important representative works, the longest novel among his works and an important literary work in American literature. An American Tragedy wa s written during the peak of Theodore Dreiser 's art creation and its publication made Dreiser gain great popularity at his age.Key Words: Theodore Dreiser; An American Tragedy; Naturalism; American DreamTheodore Dreiser (1871—1945) was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, the twelfth of thirteen children of German immigrants. His family was extremely poor but very religious. He has limited school education and left home to work at the age of 15. He had a variety of working experiences. He ever worked as a reporter for many newspapers and magazines. His works are The Genius(1915), Dreiser Looks at Russian(1928), Sister Carrie(1900), Jennie Gerhardt(1911), Trilogy of Desire:The Financier(1912), The Titan(1914), The Stoic(1947) and so on. From that, we can conclude he was prolific in many genres and he was excellent in short stories and novels.1.2 History backgroundTheodore Dreiser is a representative naturalist writer. When Dreiser began his career on literature, There were big changes in the society in many aspects. American witness the emergence of "Modern America." The economy and industry developed fast. New ideas about man and man's place in he universe began to take root in America.[2] The Darwinian concepts like "the survival of the fittest" and "the human beast" became popular catchwords and standards of moral reference in an amoral world. The literary climate of the country was also changing. Some young writers, like Dreiser, accepted the naturalism which is a new and harsher realism. They torn the mask of gentility and focus on the evil,ugly and miserable side of life. They usually presented characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity.2.Analysis of the novel2.1 Information about the novelAn American Tragedy was written in 1925. And later the novel was adapted to film version. In 2005, the book was listed by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 novels written in English since 1923.2.1 Plot summaryThe ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are much more sophisticated than he, and they introduce Clyde to the world of alcohol and prostitution. Clyde enjoys his new lifestyle and does everything in his power to win the affections of the flirtatious Hortense Briggs. But Clyde 's life is forever changed when a stolen car in which he's traveling kills a young child. Clyde flees Kansas City, and after a brief stay in Chicago, he reestablishes himself as a foreman at the collar factory of his wealthy long-lost uncle in Lycurgus, New York, who meets Clyde through a stroke of fortune. The uncle does his best to help Clyde and advances him to a position of relative importance within the factory. Although Clyde vows not to consort with women in the way that caused his Kansas City downfall, he is swiftly attracted to Roberta Alden, a poor and very innocent farm girl working under him at the factory. Clyde initially enjoys the secretive relationship (forbidden by factory rules) and virtually coerces Roberta into sex, but his ambition forces him to realize that he could never marry her. He dreams of the elegant Sondra Finchley, the daughter of a wealthy Lycurgus man and a family friend of his uncle's. As developments between him and Sondra begin to look promising, Roberta discovers that she is pregnant. Having unsuccessfully attempted to procure an abortion for Roberta, who expects him to marry her, Clyde procrastinates while his relationship with Sondra continues to mature. When he realizes that he has a genuine chance to marry Sondra, and after Roberta threatens to reveal their relationship unless he marries her, Clyde hatches a plan to murder Roberta in a fashion that will seem accidental. Clyde takes Roberta for a canoe ride on BigBittern Lake in upstate New York and rows to a remote area. As he speaks to her regarding the end of their relationship, Roberta moves towards him, and he strikes her in the face with his camera, stunning her and capsizing the boat. Unable to swim, Roberta drowns while Clyde, who is unwilling to save her, swims to shore. The narrative is deliberately unclear as to whether he acted with malice and intent to murder, or if he struck her merely instinctively. However, the trail of circumstantial evidence points to murder, and the local authorities are only too eager to convict Clyde, to the point of manufacturing additional evidence against him. Following a sensational trial before an unsympathetic audience, and despite a vigorous defense mounted by two lawyers hired by his uncle, Clyde is convicted, sentenced to death, and executed.2.2 American DreamFrom this great novel, we can clearly conclude Dreiser 's naturalism for Clyde Griffiths is representative of the American Dream gone astray. From an early age, Clyde is a social and economic outcast. He wanted to better himself. His life has been changed because he made a few bad decisions. For Clyde, each section of life further weakens his morals. The poster child for the futility of the American Dream is Clyde Griffiths. During his short life, he wants only wealth, social status, and sex. In the end, the little boy became a murderer. This process is the boy's own degraded experience, but it has its social reasons. In a way, it reflected the social environment. We can deeply analyze the social root of the cause his tragic fate. Clyde is just one of the victim of all the young generation who are in corrosion of American lifestyle. So we can say Clyde 's tragedy is not only the tragedy of young Americans, is also the tragedy of decadent American society. So the author called the book An American Tragedy. At that time, Americans was really rich. The economy developed fast and the material wealth increased, which made the United States as the world's most affluent countries. American bourgeoisie enjoyed the dream of prosperity. However, Prosperity can not hide social contradictions and injustice. People lost themselves and can not find their faith. That is so-called American tragedy. An American Tragedy was published by the critical realism writer Dreiser when the capitalist world was in aflourishing scene, which really shook the the United States.3.ConclusionIn a word,An American Tragedy is an outstanding realistic masterpiece, is also Dreiser 's most successful and beat-known work. Dreiser ponts out how evil the American capitalist system is through describing Clyde 's tragedy origin. Regarding Dreiser, he faced every form of attack that a series artist could encounter, like misunderstanding, isolation and commercial flop in his lifetime. But he still survived to lead the naturalist rebellion of the 1900s.参考文献：。

The Artistic Characteristics of An American T ragedyTheodore Dreiser (1871—1945) is a representative naturalist writer. An American Tragedy is his masterpiece based on reality for its fundamental plots so as to add the authenticity to it. The author constructs the novel with three different parts but mutually relate d to demonstrate the three artistic themes—the plots construction based on reality, the progressive theme of art, the artistic expression, which cannot be denied to be Theodore’s sparking point of his artistic design. Besides, this novel is awash with the impact of the art with the melting of thought and art.I.the plots construction based on realityThe author makes great effort to collect and study numerous realistic materials before starting his writing of the novel so as to make his opus authentic. The author discovers that there appear a large number of homicide cases in the American press①. The causes of the murderers not only lie in hatred usually, but often also are out of a kind of extremely strong desire for making a rise in life, which happens to be a forceful criticism of the American hypocritical ethics. These sorts of murders are always related to secrete affairs. From the moment of his realization of this on, Theodore began to research no less than ten of such murders conscientiously from 1914. Among the cases, there is one case that becomes the main framework of An American Tragedy. That is the one happening in 1906 in a remote place in Empire State where a man named Chester Gillette drowned his girlfriend called Grace. After his rascality was discovered, the man was sentence to death. As far as Theodore is concerned, what causes the people become a murderer cannot blame for themselves, but the American society. Only a few people could live up to the ridiculous value, which is the worship of worldly desire and money and was prevailing in that American society at that time. It is the American value, as well as lots of studies of the realistic data that Theodore’s novel An American Tragedy gives birth to.II.the progressive theme of artIn An American Tragedy, we can see Theodore’s description of the hero Clyde’s whole growing-up history step by step under the evil influence of the society, from a naive boy to a murderer. There are three themes in the novel.The first one is to reveal how the American society of the capitalist class unscrupulously instills the evil qualities into the young generation’s mind: The poverty is the most vicious, while to make great fortune is the most virtuous; it’s competent to climb up to the top of the career ladder byclimbing up on other’s back and it’s intelligent to implement tricky scheme s②.The young Clyde grew up under this fallen circumstance and degenerated in it at last. The American society full of material desire and the indifference from the people stimulated him to go downhill increasingly, from a little naïve boy to an impenitent and cynical murderer.The second theme is exposure of the essence of love under the capitalist system so as to demonstrate that love is no more than a kind of competitive weapon of human beings for their existence. The second part of the novel is description of Clyde’s love with a poor working girl, Roberta Alden, and a rich woman, Sondra Frinchley. In order to marry the rich one, Clyde murders his pregnant love, but is executed for his crime ultimately, the plot of which is based on the realistic case mentioned above. In this part, we can see how evil and fallen the social morality in that American society. What happens is not only Clyde and Roberta’s tragedy, but also that whole society’s.The third theme of this novel is to criticize the corruption of the judicial organ and the political system so as to point out the inexistence of justice and the existence of conspiracy and hypocrisy prevailing in that society, through the description of Clyde’s arrest, trail and conviction. More ironically, during Clyde’s trail, the author intentionally plots a scandal of political speculation between the two main American Parties.It is this kind of progressive theme of art that builds up the novel’s three main parts depending on each other. Clyde’s tragedy happens under the American social system. In other words, his self-extermination is largely caused by the deterioration of his thought and behaviors under the influence of the decay of that American social morality and life style. An American Tragedy is like a mirror that shows the evil things of the American life.III.the artistic expressionAn American Tragedy not only criticizes the reality acutely, but also has powerful artistic impact with the melting of thought and art. Firstly, its artistic impact is originated from its sense of reality through the author’s specific depiction of the details faithfully based on a large number of document and news③. Secondly, there are lots of situations with stark contrasts in the novel, including the life of the slumn and the luxury of the restaurants, the house of the poor farmer and the mansion of the factory owner and the contrast of characters’ personality, and so on. These contrasts show the readers the extreme disparity and the impassable class gap between the rich and the poor. These contrasts stimulate Clyde a lot and lead him to a road of no return. As for the contrast of the characters’personality, we can see an example in the depiction of the upright and honest of Clyde’s father and the imperiousness and callousness of the factory owner Samuel. Such contrast prevailing in the novel is Theodore’s artistic creation.IV.ConclusionAn American Tragedy is an outstanding realistic masterpiece, is also Theodore’s most successful work. Theodore points out how evil the American capitalist system is through describing Clyde’s tragedy’s origin. Based on plenty of realistic materials, the novel develops step by step under the progressive theme of art, among which the characters’ traits are demonstrated clearly with the author’s creative writing means——the stark contrasts. Therefore, this novel marks that Theodore’s art of writing and his expression of thought have achieved the perfect melting.Notes①杜磊吕华刁若菲《浅析《美国悲剧》中的现实主义色彩》文学语言学研究2009.02.②③吴珊《浅析德莱塞<美国的悲剧>的艺术特色》时代文学2010.06.。

专业英语八级英美文学知识分类模拟题4专业英语八级英美文学知识分类模拟题4单项选择题1. ______ was the only female American prose writer in the 19th century.A.Emily DickinsonB.Jane AustinC.George EliotD.Harriet Beecher Stowe答案：D美国19世纪唯一的女散文作家是Harriet Beecher Stowe(哈利特·比彻·斯托)。

Emily Dickirson(艾米丽·迪金森)是女诗人。

另外两位是英国女作家。

2. Harriet Beecher Stowe's works mainly focus on ______.A.romanticismB.local colourismC.naturalismD.transcendentalism答案：BHarriet Beecher Stowe(哈利特·比彻·斯托)的作品充满了乡土气息。

3. Which of the following is the masterpiece by Harriet Beecher Stowe?A.Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal SwampB.Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories'C.Uncle Tom "s CabinD.The Gilded Age答案：CSwamp(《德雷德：阴暗大沼地的故事》)和Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories(《山姆·罗森的炉边故事》)也是她的作品，但没有前者有名。

The Gilded Age(《镀金时代》)是Mark Twain(马克·吐温)的作品。

4. ______ is the masterpiece written by William Dean Howells.A.The Rise of Silas LaphamB.The Innocents AbroadC.The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead WisonD.The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg答案：AThe Rise of Silas Lapham(《塞拉斯·拉帕姆的发迹》)是威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯的名作。