摘 要

1.Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Need for the study 2

2.Literature Review 3

3.Tragedies of Protagonist 6

3.1 Tragedy of personal struggle 6

3.2 Marriage and love tragedy 10

3.3 Tragedy of personality defects 12

4. Images Suggestive of Tragedy 14

4.1 Image of snow 14

4.2 Image of animals 16

4.3 Image of winter 17

5.Conclusion 19

References 20

Acknowledgments

Compared with the universe, people are very small and insignificant. Everything we have is given to us by society and the environment.

First of all, fortunately I have very responsible parents. They gave me life and raised me up. They attach great importance to the education of me. They made me an honest and honest person.

Secondly, I am very happy that I have a great motherland. The peaceful domestic environment is the foundation of the people’s happy life. We can grow up safely under the protection of a strong motherland.

Thirdly, I admire Professor Bao very much. He taught me the scientific methods of statistics. He gave me a lot of help in the writing of the thesis. We have had many discussions on the content of the paper, and Professor Bao gave very valuable opinions.

Fourthly, I am fortunate enough to meet my roommates Huang Chun and Ni Wenyan. We got along well with each other. I came from my hometown to distant Nanjing. Their companionship made me feel very happy.

Fifthly, I want to thank my good friend Wang Fang. Last month I had a fever. She took care of me carefully.

In the future, I will study harder and become a person who is good for society.

Abstract

Both Dreiser and Lao She are famous modern realist writers. Although due to the social environment, historical and cultural background, and personal experience, their works have certain differences in content. Their novels have shown a strong tragic color.

This thesis describes in detail three kinds of tragedy that occurred to the two protagonists and compares their tragic destinies. It also discusses in terms of how to criticize the society, how to criticize the society, how to expose the causes of personal tragedy and how to describe patriarchal consciousness.

In the end, It is concluded that the tragedies of Clyde and Xiang Zi are typical and universal in the society in which they live. They suffered not only personal tragedies but also social tragedies.

Keywords: Society; Tragedy; Tragic fate; Xiang Zi; Clyde

中文摘要

德莱塞和老舍都是现代著名的现实主义作家。虽然由于所处的社会环境，历史文化背景，以及个人经历不同，导致他们的作品在具体内容上有一定的差异性。但是他们的小说中都表现出了强烈的悲剧色彩。

本文详细描述发生在两位主人公身上的三种悲剧，就他们的悲剧命运进行对比并讨论了两部作品的相异性，指出它们在批判社会的角度，造成个人悲剧的原因，以及男权意识的表达方式上的不同。

本文最后得出结论：克莱德和祥子的悲剧在他们所处的社会是具有典型性和普遍性的，他们遭受的不仅仅是个人悲剧更是社会悲剧。

关键词：社会；悲剧；悲剧命运；祥子；克莱德

1.Introduction

Research background

Lao She (1899-1966) was a famous modern Chinese writer who had a profound influence on Chinese literature. Lao She was a writer who really worked in the civil class. The narrative vision of his works was fixed in the mass of the common people, Lao She depicted various kinds of civilian figures, new and old townspeople, intellectuals, poor people at the bottom and described their thoughts, lives and destinies.Lao She published The Philosophy of Lao Zhang in 1926, from then on, he has started his writing career. For 40 years, Lao She has been constantly exploring the unique literary world that has been created. Lao She has passed away for more than 50 years, but his works still attract readers and researchers with their great artistic charm and cultural connotations.

Rickshaw Boy is a representative work of Lao She’s works, which embodies the highest artistic achievement in Lao She's writing career. Lao She attached importance to the living scenes of the lower laboring people, especially the circle of rickshaw drivers. The novel depicted a honest, hardworking, decent rickshaw boy a series of defeats in his dream and marriage failure, finally degenerates into "urban garbage" and "the sick embryo in the dirty womb of society" and "a dying ghost of individualism."

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), who lived in the same era as Lao She, was a pioneer of modern American novels. In the early 20th century, the dominant American literary world was a so-called American "syrup" novel that glorified democratic politics, despite the malpractice of the United States in capitalist competition. But most Americans still had good dreams about America's future psychologically. It was, in Washington's words, a "naive age." The Americans of this period were always cheerful, optimistic, and full of songs. This kind of novel often ended with a scene of joy after the devils have been purged. Dreiser, on the other hand, appeared as a rebel in popular literature and established the historical position of the literary master in the position of American literature with the theme of the disillusionment of the American dream. An American Tragedy represents the highest achievement of Dreiser, which makes people see the real situation of American society clearly and still has great practical significance.

Lao She and Dreiser's novels depicted tragic phenomena in the social life and express the suffering, death or decline of the protagonists by the tragic conflict. Therefore, the tragedy in Lao She and Dreiser's novels is not a form of drama in a narrow sense, but refers to the failure, destruction and death of positive social forces or characters in the inevitable social contradiction struggle in the real society. It should be pointed out that Dreiser and Lao She have also created some villains in their works as the protagonists of tragedy. Although this is contrary to Aristotle's definition of tragic characters, it is still related to the social ideal and aesthetic evaluation of novelists.

1.2 Need for the study

China and the United States have distinct historical backgrounds, political systems and lifestyles. Tragic literature grows on the different economic basis of China and America, but it can resonate with people. One of the meanings of contrastive literature is to break the barrier of cultural communication and make excellent literary works resonate with people from different countries. Lao She and Dreiser are great masters of modern literature in the world. The protagonists of their novels are widely known to people all over the world. The tragic fate of Xiang Zi and Clyde can still arouse our deep thoughts on the value of life and the development of society.

Tolstoy（2011）once said, "All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Every man's tragedy is always different. However, even among all kinds of tragedies, we can find out the commonness of tragedies through comparative analysis. A comparative study of the tragic fate of the protagonists in Rickshaw Boy and An American Tragedy can explore the fate of the middle and lower citizens in the same period in order to find out the inevitability of their tragedy.

2.Literature Review

Tragedy is the main line that runs through Lao She's life and his works. According to the General Library of academic documents of CNKI, China, since 1956, there have been nearly 20, 000 articles of research with the keyword "Lao She" . Through the induction and comparison of these research articles, we can find that with the progress of the times and the improvement of the understanding level, scholars' research on the elderly has changed from the research with political inclination to the self-conscious academic research. The study on the tragedies which written by Lao She mainly focuses on three aspects: the study of the tragic consciousness of Lao She, the study and comparison of the tragic image of his works. And the study on the tragic image of Lao She's works is the study of the different types of people in Lao She's works. For example, the deep thinking of the citizens in the aspects of personality and psychological spirit, and some researches on the characters with typical images in a novel, such as the study of Xiang Zi in Rickshaw Boy. For Example, Shao Ningning (2006) put forward his original opinion on the social significance of Xiang Zi's image. He thought that Xiang Zi's survival problem in the city is very similar to that of the contemporary migrant workers in the city. Modern cities provide them with the opportunity to struggle, but they also create many challenges and traps. Fu Zhenzhen(2013)also made research about this problem. Song Dengan (2015) points out that under the new historical and contemporary conditions, Xiang Zi’s problem presents a new form and a new form of expression. Xiang Zi and contemporary migrant workers are the representatives of the lower citizens. Ying Siyue's （2010）essay used existentialism to analyze Xiang Zi. From the existentialism point of view, Xiang Zi is a dignified person, he has the courage to take responsibility, and strive to find his own existence value. However, "other people is hell"(Sartre, 2007） his dream was destroyed by the outside world eventually. From the previous studies, we can understand that the tragedy of Xiang Zi is socially universal. We can analyze his tragedy from both the social environment and the family environment.

In comparative research, Zeng Xiangling (2004) made a study of Jude the obscure and Rickshaw Boy. Her paper discusses the similarities between the fate of the characters from the tragedy of personal struggle and the tragedy of love and marriage. This shows that alienation theory is also an important aspect of studying the image of Xiang Zi characters.In addition, Lao She and Dresser’s novels are also very comparable. There are many articles comparing Rickshaw Boy with Sister Carrie. Nie Jun (2012) pointed out that Carrie and Xiang Zi share a similar historical background. They all reflect the difficult fate of the little citizen in the transition from productive society to consumer society. These articled shows that Xiang Zi's image is also of contrastive value in European and American literature. While, these articles also show that Lao She's works and Dreiser's works are comparable. By the way, some authors compare and analyze French literary works and Korean literary works.