《嘉莉妹妹》是德莱赛的第一部长篇小说，也是奠定他在美国文学史上特殊地位的一部小说。小说中的女主人公嘉莉同这部小说一样从一诞生就倍受争议。当时的评论家从正统的道德观出发，认为女主人公通过出卖自己的身体获得成功的的行为是一种伤风败俗。然而女性主义作家却认为她是一个成功的女人，她靠自己的努力成为了百老汇的名角，获得了想要的一切。然而，从小说的最后两句话中我们看到：嘉莉妹妹虽然获得了物质上的满足，但是，她却毅然孤单，空虚。我们知道，小说的作者德莱赛生活的时代正是机械论和达尔文适者生存进化论盛行的时代，作者受这两种思想的影响，他的作品中都透露出一种悲观的自然主义观：人在自然面前是渺小的，是无法与自然力量相抗衡的。嘉莉妹妹就是生活在那样一个时代。她的命运注定是悲惨的。本文将从两个方面来分析嘉莉妹妹的悲惨命运。第一是她的性格：嘉莉妹妹想要一种富足的生活，但是却不想通过勤劳的工作，而是靠出卖自己的身体；嘉莉妹妹只是追逐物质上的满足，却忽略了精神上的充实；嘉莉对待所有人都是冷漠无情的，最后，她也被所有的人遗弃。第二是决定嘉莉妹妹悲剧命运最深层的原因—当时的社会经济环境：嘉莉妹妹生活在工业化和消费主义盛行的时期，那个时代的人们只是盲目的追逐物质上的满足；嘉莉妹妹的性格形成于当时的特定的社会经济环境下；嘉莉妹妹无法从当时的社会环境中解脱出，而将继续在那个环境中挣扎。

Sister Carrie was Theodore Dreiser’s first novel and established Dreiser’s special status in the history of American literature. The heroine of the novel-Carrie-as the novel itself, have been the subject of debate from the day they were born. Critics at that time thought Carrie’s success was immoral and transgressed traditional morality. However, feminist writers have thought she is a successful woman, because she becomes a Broadway performer through her efforts and gets all the things that she wants. However, the last two sentences of the novel show us that although Sister Carrie gets material satisfaction, she is in a state of loneliness and emptiness. It is known that the author of the novel Theodore Dreiser, lived in a time when the machine theory which thought that human beings cannot control their own fate before the nature and Darwin’s notion of the survival of the fittest were prevailing. Influenced by these two theories, Dreiser’s works reveal a pessimistic version of naturalism: human beings are tiny in the face of nature, and they cannot compete with the forces of nature. Sister Carrie is living in that era. Her fate, therefore, must be a tragedy. This paper will analyze the causes of Sister Carrie’s tragic fate from two aspects. The first aspect is her personal characteristics: Sister Carrie wants to enjoy a wealthy life, but she is not a hardworking woman; Sister Carrie only chases material satisfaction, but she never pursues spiritual fulfillment; Sister Carrie is cold to the people around her, and she is abandoned by the world in the end. The second aspect is the social-economic environment: Sister Carrie lives in the early 20th Century which saw the rise of industrialization and consumerism in America; Sister Carrie’s personal characteristics are shaped by her socio-economic environment; she cannot escape from the environment and she will go on struggling in it.