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Portrayal of The Protagonists in Edith Wharton's 'The House of Mirth' and Theodore Dreiser's 'Sister Carrie'.

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ii Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Dalam karya ilmiah ini, saya membahas dua buah novel berjudul The House of Mirth karya Edith Wharton dan Sister Carrie karya Theodore Dreiser. Topik yang saya angkat dalam Tugas Akhir ini adalah penggambaran tokoh pada

Gilded Era, sebuah era yang terkenal dalam sejarah Amerika pada akhir abad

kesembilan belas. Kedua tokoh utama yang dibahas adalah Lily Bart dalam novel The House of Mirth dan Carrie Meeber dalam novel Sister Carrie.

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iii Maranatha Christian University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... ii

ABSTRACT ... iii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Background of the Study ... 1

Statement of the Problem ... 3

Purpose of the Study ... 3

Method of Research ... 3

Organization of the Thesis ... 4

CHAPTER TWO: PORTRAYAL OF THE PROTAGONIST IN EDITH WHARTON’S THE HOUSE OF MIRTH ... 5

CHAPTER THREE: PORTRAYAL OF THE PROTAGONIST IN THEODORE DREISER’S SISTER CARRIE ... 20

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ... 31

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 35

APPENDICES Synopsis of The House of Mirth ... 37

Synopsis of Sister Carrie ... 38

Biography of Edith Wharton ... 39

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APPENDICES

Synopsis of The House of Mirth

Lily Bart is a girl of an upper-middle class family in New York. As a child, she lived luxuriously and comfortably, until her father’s business goes bankrupt, and Lily and her mother are forced to live in a bad condition. Her mother once tells Lily that she must get their previous life back someday.

After her mother’s death, Lily stays with her stingy aunt, Mrs. Peniston,

who only supplies her with little amount of money. Lily, however, still cannot let herself go of the habit of spending money. Knowing this fact and remembering

her mother’s words, she plans to marry someone very wealthy.

By the time she needs money, Lily entrusts her small amount of money to

Gus Trenor, her friend’s husband, to be invested in the stock market. Since then,

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When Mrs. Peniston dies, she only leaves $ 10,000 to Lily. It is almost the same as the amount she owes Gus. As the inheritance is not given immediately, Lily tries hard to work in order to survive, yet she never succeeds in any jobs. As the situation is getting worse, she starts to consume sleeping pills. In the end, the inheritance arrives earlier than expected, but tragically at that time Lily has felt there is no use to continue her life. She commits suicide by taking an overdose of pills.

Synopsis of Sister Carrie

Caroline Meeber is an eighteen-year-old girl who lives in rural Wisconsin. She has many dreams in her life, therefore she decides to go to Chicago to realize her dreams.

On the train to Chicago, she meets a traveling salesman named Charles Drouet and they become friends. In Chicago, Carrie stays in her sister’s house and

gets a job in a shoe factory. When she falls sick because of the job, she meets again with Drouet. He asks her to leave her job and her sister, and stay with him. She accepts his offer.

During her stay with Drouet, he buys her beautiful wardrobe, improves her appearance, and asks her to play in a theater. Surprisingly, Carrie performs well in the play. She really enjoys those changes in her life so that she no longer wants to get back to poverty.

One day, Drouet introduces her to George Hurstwood, a rich saloon manager. Both Carrie and Hurstwood are attracted to each other and soon they

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divorce, he embezzles the money from the bar he manages and lures Carrie to run away with him to Canada. Carrie agrees. She leaves Drouet and marries Hurstwood. Later they get back to New York.

They live happily at first, but three years later he loses his job and runs out of money soon afterwards without ever getting a new job. Carrie, who has become more dissatisfied with him, starts to find an employment in a New York’s theater.

She begins to rise from a chorus girl to small speaking roles. Climbing the ladder to success, she decides to leave Hurstwood, like what she has done to Drouet.

Biography of Edith Wharton

Edith Newbold Jones was born on January 24, 1862 in New York City. She had a good education background and spoke French and German fluently. She began her career as a writer by writing poems, short stories, and ghost stories. When she was twenty-three years old, she married Edward Robins Wharton. In 1901, she started building her estate, the Mount, which has now become a National Historic Landmark in Massachusetts. There she wrote her novels, The Valley of Decision (1902) and The House of Mirth (1905), which was that year’s best-seller.

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in France (1915) and The Maine (1918). When the war ended, she left Paris for the country life.

In 1920, she finished writing The Age of Innocence, which won her a Pulitzer Prize. Leaving America for almost sixteen years, she only came back once to receive an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Yale in 1923. She was also elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters organization. Edith Wharton remained an active writer until she died of stroke on August 11, 1937.

Source: “Edith Wharton”, Wharton V-VII

Biography of Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was born on August 27, 1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was the twelfth of thirteen children to a German-Catholic immigrant family. As his family experienced hard times during his childhood, he only had little opportunity to get education. He decided not to finish high school and moved to Chicago to look for a job. He had jobs there as well as a chance to study in Indiana University, but only for a year.

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Outside the field of writing, he was interested in politics and scientific-philosophical study. His political activities started in 1927, when the Soviet government invited him to Moscow to attend the anniversary celebration of the October Revolution. In the 1930s, he wrote little fiction since he devoted himself to political activities; he joined an international peace conference in Paris and became an advocate in America for the victims of the Spanish Civil War. Dreiser himself admitted that he was a socialist and five months before his death, he joined the Communist Party. On December 28, 1945 he died of heart failure, in Hollywood, California.

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1 Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

In the late 19th century, after the Reconstruction era, the United States of America experienced a new era of modernism. This era was thought as the

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2 Maranatha Christian University Edith Wharton and Theodore Dreiser lived in this period of time and they made it the setting of their novels, The House of Mirth and Sister Carrie. In The House of Mirth, the protagonist comes from an upper-middle class society, but when her family goes bankrupt, she faces a difficult economic condition. As she still wants to stay inside the rich circle, she intends to marry for money to cope with this serious matter. In Sister Carrie, the protagonist is a poor woman who dreams of a better life, so she goes to Chicago to look for a job. Both protagonists try to survive in big cities, which are influenced by wealth and social status.

Edith Wharton was a successful American writer and many of her works have become best-sellers. The major discussion of her fiction deals with manners, mores and social changes in the American life (Wharton VI). The House of Mirth is her first major work and it describes the life of New York’s upper class. Because Edith Wharton also grows up in this milieu, she gives exact descriptions about life in this class and boldly shows the bad side of it, which is often hidden behind fine appearances. This novel is considered as a novel of manners, which

“often shows a conflict between individual aspirations or desires and the accepted social codes of behaviour” (“Novel of Manners”).

Theodore Dreiser was once a reporter. This experience enabled him to tell his stories honestly with detailed explanations and descriptions; the details which make people understand and see the real life in America from both good and bad sides. His first novel, Sister Carrie, describes how lower-class people view the life of upper class and how they try to become a part of it. The story is inspired by

Dreiser’s sister’s experience and by what he has heard and seen in his life (Dreiser

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3 Maranatha Christian University As the stories revolve around these protagonists, I think it is best to discuss characters in this thesis. According to Beaty, character is “a person (or personified or anthropomorphized animal, object, or deity) who acts, appears, or is referred to

in a work” (604). Thus, I analyze the portrayal of the protagonists in The House of Mirth and Sister Carrie using formalism.

Statement of the Problem

The thesis discusses these questions:

1. How are the protagonists portrayed in the novels?

2. What are the authors’ purposes in creating such characters?

Purpose of the Study

The purposes of the thesis are:

1. to show how the protagonists are portrayed in the novels.

2. to show the authors’ purposes in creating such characters.

Method of Research

In writing my thesis, I use the method of library research. I begin the study by reading the primary texts, which are Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth and

Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. Then I read some references from the Internet

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4 Maranatha Christian University Organization of the Thesis

I divide the thesis into four chapters, preceded by the Abstract, the Acknowledgement, and the Table of Content. In Chapter One, I present the Introduction, consisting of the Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Methods of Research and the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter Two, I analyze the Portrayal of the Protagonist in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. In Chapter Three, I analyze the Portrayal of the

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31 Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

After analyzing the two protagonists in The House of Mirth and Sister Carrie, I would like to draw some conclusion. Both of the authors take the Gilded Era, an era in the late 19th century America where they lived, as the setting for their stories. Although Wharton and Dreiser expose different classes, high class and low class, the whole atmosphere of the this Era is affected by hedonism. All people fight to get rich or richer, because being rich is believed to be closely associated with one’s success and happiness. Since this era is closely related to hedonism, these two stories revolve around a person who makes big efforts to get pleasures in their lives.

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32 Maranatha Christian University Since they are hedonistic, they adore pleasures very much. Pleasures for them mean having much money and a lot of material things, as well as living in a luxurious place.

When they have to face their economic problem, each of them uses their other characteristics to cope with it. Lily uses her beauty to attract rich men, which makes her a manipulative woman. She does not mind marrying for money. Carrie does not differ much from Lily. With her strong ambition, she is willing to do anything to get wealth, material things, and be an artiste. She does not miss a chance when there are men with money who are attracted to her.

Although the two protagonists are similar, they do have some differences. Wharton creates Lily as a dynamic character, while Dreiser creates Carrie as a static character. In the middle of the story, Lily changes her characteristics and she becomes sincere and no longer hedonistic. She does not consider wealth and material things as the most important thing in life anymore and she no longer uses her beauty as an easy way to get what she wants. As a static character, Carrie does not experience any changes in characteristic. She still has the same personality at the end of the story as she does at the beginning. This significant difference leads each of them to the different fate. Lily fails to get what she really wants and dies of overdose at the end of the story. On the other hand, Carrie gets the pleasures and the better life she dreams of.

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33 Maranatha Christian University “The Evolution Theory of Charles Darwin provides the greatest influence to

naturalistic writers. That is why stories from naturalistic writers espoused the view

that one’s bloodline and environment determine a person’s character. Realism

presents the character exactly who he or she is.” (Cuizon). Moreover, realism gives more emphasis on the events which happen based on the character’s choice, while naturalistic view considers that everything that happens have been

determined. “In realism … the moral or ethical choices facing the character

become the crux of the story. In a naturalistic novel, the writer will temper the realistic portrayal of events to show the effects and significance of a deterministic universe” (Pru). Therefore, Wharton really shows Lily’s true characteristics in the novel and the tragic ending that comes to Lily is the consequence of her choice. But, Dreiser creates Carrie with characteristics that are shaped by her surroundings. Thus, in the end, like any other successful people at that time who have hedonistic and ambitious characteristics, Carrie also becomes successful in the end.

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34 Maranatha Christian University From how the authors convey their purposes, I prefer Wharton’s way. In my personal opinion, it is more effective and the message is much better conveyed to the readers. They would be able to directly see and understand how life can really change if they do not live in accordance with the values that society holds. The readers are also given a clear example of one who becomes the victim of the society. In my opinion, this way of criticizing is more convincing than Dreiser’s. He seems to be using a safer way to criticize society by creating a character that is portrayed as following the values that everyone else holds with a happy outcome. Still, through their works, Wharton and Dreiser have proven Mark Twain’s expression for that era, that glittering appearance covers its own badness. “Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath” (“Learn About Gilded Age”).

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35 Maranatha Christian University

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Texts:

Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. New York: Signet Classic, 1961.

Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1997. References:

Beaty, Jerome. Fiction. Toronto: George J. McLeod Limited, 1973.

High, Peter B. An Outline of American Literature. New York: Longman Inc., 1986.

Hornby, AS. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2005. Internet Websites:

Cuizon, Gwen. “What is Naturalism in Literature?.” Bukisa. 2009. 29 Jul. 2011. <http://www.bukisa.com/articles/32413_what-is-naturalism-in-literature>

“Edith Wharton.” The Literature Network. 2010. 19 Mar. 2010.

<http://www.online-literature.com/wharton/>

“Gilded Age.” American Experience. 2009. 14 May. 2010.

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html>

“Learn About Gilded Age.” Digital History. 2011. 22 May.2011.

<http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/gilded_age/index.cfm>

“Novel of Manners.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2009. 19 Apr. 2010.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel_of_manners>

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36 Maranatha Christian University <http://www.ehow.com/info_8425576_differences-naturalism-realism-literature.html>

Riggio, Thomas P. “Biography of Theodore Dreiser.” Penn Libraries. 2006. 19 Apr. 2010.

<http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/dreiser/tdbio.html>

“Theodore Dreiser.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2010. 19 Mar. 2010.

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