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Although Theodore Dreiser has gained a reputation for ,objective, scientific observation of life, he also showed a strong tendency to believe in superstition-charms, omens, premonitions, fortune-telling, astrology, prophetic dreams, and spiritualism. Such beliefs do not lend themselves to scientific observation and proof. This paper deals with the part of Dreiser's beliefs which was not disciplined by science. Three major aspects of superstition in Dreiser's life and works--luck, foreknowledge, and spirits--are covered in this dissertation. His investigation of religion is discussed only when it is relevant to the superstitious beliefs presented, and his pseudoscientific beliefs are not covered.The first chapter deals with Dreiser's observation of the lack of correlation between deserving and receiving good or bad luck. His biographical works show times when he felt that luck was a determining factor in his own life, and his fiction shows the operation of chance in the lives of his characters. The coincidences and ironies of his own life and those of his characters are included in this discussion because of the involvement of chance, an unpredictable aspect of life over which people can exercise no control. Along with this idea is Dreiser's inconsistent belief in the possibility of influencing luck by carrying lucky coins, knocking on wood, or hanging a horseshoe on the dashboard of a car.Chapter II deals with ways by which he thought a person might be able to learn about the future. For instance, he watched for cross-eyed women, hunchbacks, and broken or whole horseshoes. Eugene Witla, a character patterned after himself, believed that creaking doors, howling dogs, and black-bearded men were indicators of the future. Dreiser believed in predictions of fortune-tellers, and he experimented with Ouija boards. In The "Genius", astrology was a more accurate predictor than anything which science could provide. Dreams were important to Dreiser and can be found in most of his novels. They were used as both literary devices which allowed him to control the imagery and as predictors of the future. Also included in this chapter are the folk sayings and practices which were important both in his own life and in his works.The final section covers Dreiser's ideas concerning whether there is a continuance of the spirit after death. He himself went to seances and believed in the necessity for careful investigation of spiritualism as a means of gaining new knowledge about death and the operation of the universe. There is a discussion of spirit characters which indicates that, along with heredity and environment as determining factors in life, there is also the possibility of the intervention of spirits in the occurrences of this world.The significance of this study for readers of Dreiser is that he really should not be given so much credit for his scientific approach to philosophy and literature. There were inconsistencies in his thinking caused by his family background and by gaps in his education. His notions concerning such matters as faith healing, thought materialization, and the validity of predictions and signs kept him from being the cold-blooded, objective, scientific observer of life for which he has been credited. His work shows his constant search for answers to questions concerning the Creative Force and the operation of the universe, but his questions were beyond the power of science to answer. He arrived at a philosophy based upon his own observation of life, his reading, his intuition, and his desire to uncover some kind of proof of intelligent planning behind the universe.

The rise of naturalism in American letters was born out of a reaction against romanticism by writers such as Theodore Dreiser, Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London, Upton Sinclair and Robert Herrick, who attempted to rid the American novel of romanticism by delving deeper into life's truths than did the realists Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Henry James. The naturalists objected to the limited subject matter of the realists; they focused their attention on "slums, crime, illicit sexual passions, exploitation of man by man"2 and other actualities of the world. George Perkins outlined other distinctions between realism and naturalism in American literature.3 He describes nineteenth-century realism, 1870-1890, as represented by writers who created a world of truth by keeping actuality clearly in mind. The emphasis was on the following: 1. Using settings that were thoroughly familiar to the writer. 2. Emphasizing the norm of daily experience in plot construction. 3. Creating ordinary characters and studying them in depth. 4. Adhering to complete authorial objectivity. 5. Accepting their moral responsibility by reporting the world as it truly was.

Beginning in 1911 with Jennie Gerhardt and continuing through the publication of The "Genius" in 1915, all of Dreiser's major fiction is curiously marked by the same recurring narrative pattern. The pattern is always triangluar in construction and always contains the same three figures-- a vindictive and vengeful parent, outraged by an outisder's violation of personal and societal values; an enchanted offspring; and a disrupted outsider who threatens established order. In spite of each work's different characterization, setting, and episode, the narrative conflict invariably arises from the discovery of an illicit relationship between offspring and outsider, and the narrative climax involves a violent clash of wills, with victory sometimes going to the parent and sometimes to the outsider. The denouement is consistently sorrowful and pensive in tone, with a philosophical epilogue which speculates on man's melancholy and puzzling fate. As both a guide to personal therapy and a key to the work with which Dreiser established his artistic identity, the recurring narrative pattern is important. Its examination (1) illuminates an obscure period in Dreiser's life, (2) reveals his personality priorities as he turns the kaleidoscope of introspection to observe the Cudlipp crisis from various angles, and (3) offers to the discerning reader a reliable clue to the developing system of aesthetics of one of America's greatest artists.

This study refocuses the current critical discussion of determinism and character identity development in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, a predominantly "urban" novel, by juxtaposing the ways in which the natural world functions deterministically in Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native and Theodore Dreiser's The Bulwark. First, a close reading of The Return of the Native suggests that characters' interactions with the natural world determine their identities by forcing shifts in perception and complicating their abilities to assert an identity apart from their environments. Then, a reading of The Bulwark—a novel in which Dreiser deals with the natural world quite directly—allows an exploration of how these same patterns of perception, understanding, and identity formation take shape in a text by Dreiser. The final chapter of this study synthesizes these readings of The Return of the Native and The Bulwark as a means of entry into an analysis of Sister Carrie's deterministic forces. Ultimately, attention to how the natural world influences characters through its timelessness and infinite size, as well as to how the natural world shapes a character's perspective and sense of self, adds to our understanding of the novel's determinism. / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

The author's purpose has been to trace in a very broad and general manner the trend of naturalism up to this point where the central figure of our study, Theodore Dreiser, enters into the picture. This survey is designed primarily to give the reader an indication of what naturalism is, both in philosophy and method, and a very brief historical background of the movement.

Chicago occupies a place in the American imagination as a city of industry and opportunity for those who are willing to hustle. Writers have in no small part contributed to the creation of this mythology; this canon includes Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, and Richard Wright. What is it about these authors that make them the classics of Chicago literature? The “essential” books of Chicago enshrine a period during which the city still held a prominent position in the national economy and culture, and embodied for Americans something of their own identity—the value of individualism, and the Protestant work ethic. Notably absent are the narratives from immigrants, particularly those of color: for a city that was a primary destination for the Great Migration of African Americans from the South and the concurrent immigration of Mexicans in the early part of the 20th century, it is remarkable that these stories have not gained significant attention, with the exception of Richard Wright’s. This dissertation interrogates the discourse of ambition and labor in the Chicago literary tradition from the perspective of three Mexican American authors from Chicago—Carlos Cortez, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros. These authors, faced with late 20th century deindustrialization and the enduring legacy of segregation, engage with the canonical narratives of Chicago by addressing the intersections of race and citizenship as they affect urban space and labor opportunities. Rather than simply offering a critique, however, the Mexican American authors engage in a re-visioning of the city that incorporates the complexities of a fluid, transnational experience, and in doing so suggest the future of urban life in a post-industrial America. / text