【正文】 I would like to take this opportunity to show my deepest gratitude to my instructor – Min, a respectable teacher in School of Foreign Language, for all the help he has offered me during the preparation and writing of this paper and for all the pains he took in reading and correcting my drafts. It is obvious that without his patient instruction, helpful suggestions and constant encouragement, I could not have fulfilled this task as successfully as I wished. Then關鍵詞：嘉莉妹妹；欲望；迷失；層次需求理論Contents1. Introduction 1 About the author and the novel 1 About Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 12. Carrie’s material pursuit 2 The physiological needs: leaving for Chicago 2 The safety needs: being Drouet’s mistress 33. Carrie’s spiritual sublimation by degrees 4 The love and belonging needs awaking step 5 The esteem needs advanced development 5 The selfactualization needs ultimate goal 64. Significance of the novel 75. Conclusion 8Notes 8Bibliography 9Acknowledgements 10A Brief Analysis of Sister Carrie Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs1. Introduction About the author and the novelTheodore Dreiser is one of America’s greatest writers, and its greatest naturalist writer as well. With the publication of Sister Carrie in 1900, Dreiser mitted his literary force to opening the new ground of American naturalism. The general reaction to Dreiser has always been negative. He has been called a “Crag of basalt”, solemn and ponderous and the world’s worst great writer, but his influence is evident in the works of Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, and James , among others. One of thirteen children, Dreiser was raised in Terre Haule, Indiana, in misery and bruising poverty. At fifteen Dreiser fled from home and went to Chicago, where he washed dishes in a cheap restaurant, clerked in a store, and painted advertising signs. He read constantly, like one of his own helpless characters, he dreamed of wealth and social success in the great metropolises. When he was eighteen, a sympathetic teacher helped him enter the University of Indiana, but Dreiser quitted after a year and returned to Chicago, where he embarked on another sseveral of menial jobs and wandered the city streets at night, storing up impressions of drunks, thieves, prostitutes, and beggars. Dreiser’s own experience in Chicago and New York were the perfect materials for the story of a poor country protagonist who es to the city to seek whatever she can find. The heroin of the novel is Carrie Meeber, who leaves her rural home to try her fortune in Chicago. She meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman on the train. After arriving in Chicago, she finds a job in a shoe factory, but the poor ine and hard work oppress her imagination. She quits the job, lonely and distressed, she bees Drouet’s mistress. When Drouet is away on a business trip, Carrie falls in love with George Hurstwood, a married manager. Hurstwood and Carrie elope to New York, and live together for more than 3 years. In these 3 years, Carrie bees more and more popular while Hurstwood declines. Carrie walks out on him. Hurstwood bees a beggar, sinks lower and lower and finally mitted suicide. Carrie bees a popular star of musical edies. However, in her massive success, she still feels lonely and empty. Sister Carrie represents Dreiser’s belief in representing life honestly in fiction. Dreiser acplished this through accurate details, especially in his descriptions of the urban settings in which many of his stories take places. In his naturalistic portrayals, Dreiser sees his characters as victims of social and economic forces and of date. About Maslow’s hierarchy of needsNeed, simply can be defined as personal wants. Maslow believes that Humans are wanting beings, who seek to fulfill a variety of needs. In his hierarchy of needs, there are five kinds, with each one being more important than the preceding one. These are briefly physiological, safety, love, esteem, and selfactualization needs. (1)The physiological needs –it is the most prepotent of all needs, including food and water, shelter and sleep. If all the needs are unsatisfied, and humans are dominated by the physiological needs, all other needs may bee simply nonexistent or be pushed into the background. (2)The safety needs It will emerge the safety needs when the physiological needs are relatively well gratified. Humans need to keep his body safe from injury, illness and so on, and safe from misfortunes both now and in a foreseeable future. (3)The love and belonging needs If both the physiological and the safety needs are fairly well gratified, and then there will emerge the love and belonging needs. Humans will hunger for affectionate relations with people in general, namely, for a place in his group, a desire to marry, have a family and he will strive with great intensity to achieve this goal. (4)The esteem needs it is soundly based upon real capacity, achievement and respect from others. These needs may be classified into two subsidiary sets. These are, first, the desire for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for confidence in the face of the world, and for independence and freedom. Secondly, we have what we may call the desire for reputation or prestige, attention, importance or appreciation. Satisfaction of t