On "an American Tragedy" Philosophical Thoughts

From 20^th centruy, United States gradually accelerated the modernization process,and American economic life had undergone great changes. So,individualism and materialism influenced the mindset of the people widely,and traditional ethics had also undergone a change.Living in such a dramatic restructuring of the times,it is difficult to avoid the inevitable social impact for Theodore Dreiser. He demonstrated people's confusion, contradictions and conflicts through his fiction,and in fact,he also expressed his understanding of the world. As for philosophy, the views of Spencer Darwin profound impact on Dreiser,and also, American consumer culture, Communist ideology and Christian spirit affected him greatly. As a novelist, Dreiser expressed his thinking of life through the characters in novels."An American Tragedy" based on a real case, and it reflected the author's ideological contradictions. Dreiser shown the negative attitued of culture and the new understanding of traditional ethics, and he spent a lot of energy on the fiction plots. Dreiser revised the prototype of "An American Tragedy":First, there was no love triangle in the prototype, but the author stressed the contradictions of protagonists between the feelings of two women. Second, the ways of murder were different, one was accidental and another one was the deliberate. Third, Clyde expressed his regret after committing crimes, but his prototype has never done it.These differences reflected the author's position. Because of the consumer culture, Dreiser changed the prototype story. In fact, the values and ideological structure of Dreiser decided novel's outlook .In this article, I used Ethical Approach to Literary Studies to explain the changes.