Theodore Dreiser Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Yoshinobu Hakutani

Critical Essay by Yoshinobu Hakutani

SOURCE: Hakutani, Yoshinobu. “Early Short Stories.” In Young Dreiser: A Critical Study, pp. 151-68. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1980.

In the following excerpt, Hakutani discusses Theodore Dreiser's contribution to American literary naturalism and the influence of French naturalist authors upon his work.

In the summer of 1899, shortly before the writing of Sister Carrie, Dreiser tried his hand at the short story, his first concentrated effort to write fiction.

During this period Dreiser managed to express himself on the concepts that had been latent in his mind for a long time. When he first read Herbert Spencer's work, Dreiser absorbed the technical theories of Spencerian determinism. … Seeing the proof of determinism in his own experience, Dreiser ignored Spencer's inherent theory of unending progress and chose to believe that man was a victim of natural forces. Dreiser's conclusion then was that “man was a mechanism, undevised and uncreated,...
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