Abstract:This essay argues that Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie shows how various forms of paper such as records, licensures, newspapers, and credentials altered late nineteenth-century American conceptions of identity. No longer was identity tied primarily to a person’s word, but how one was presented and preserved on paper began to matter much more significantly at the turn of the century as the nation became bureaucratized with the rise of professionalization, nationally syndicated newspapers, and centralized recordkeeping. By first examining the material nature and history of the novel’s holograph manuscript, as well as Dreiser’s interactions with his paper, the essay analyzes how paper itself becomes a conduit for, and representation of, one’s identity in the novel. Paper ultimately tracks characters’ rises and falls: from Carrie Meeber’s rise as an unemployed flourmill worker’s daughter arriving in Chicago holding a scrap of paper with an address on it, to a star actress with her name in lights and life-sized image on a lithograph poster, to Hurstwood’s fall from a successful man about town who could get Carrie’s acting performances featured in newspapers in Chicago, to a homeless vagrant in New York City unable to afford a newspaper to read about Carrie’s success.

中文翻译：

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德莱塞的论文和身份的官僚化

摘要：本文认为，西奥多·德莱塞 (Theodore Dreiser) 的小说《嘉莉修女》(Sister Carrie) 展示了记录、执照、报纸和证书等各种形式的纸张如何改变了 19 世纪晚期美国人的身份观念。身份不再主要与一个人的话联系在一起，但是在世纪之交，随着专业化、全国性联合报纸和中央记录保存的兴起，国家变得官僚化，因此如何在纸上呈现和保存身份开始变得更加重要. 通过首先检查小说全息手稿的材料性质和历史，以及德莱塞与他的论文的互动，这篇文章分析了纸张本身如何成为小说中一个人身份的渠道和表征。Paper 最终会追踪角色的兴衰：