An Analysis Of Sister Carrie From The Perspective Of Consumer Culture

Theodore Dreiser is regarded as an influential American novelist in the early20thcentury. His novel, Sister Carrie, not only makes him well-known all over the world, butalso settles his literary status in America. Sister Carrie mainly tells Carrie’s process ofactualization from a penniless girl to an elegant woman. When climbing up the ladder ofthe upper strata, she does not win her dreaming happiness, but the endless hopelessnessand mental torture. The novel was created in1900when the modern consumer cultureboomingly rises; people’s value orientations and behavior modes were largelydetermined by the consumption ideology. The new production-oriented ideologiesgradually give way to the consumption-oriented one in American society. Theconsumption ideology lays more emphasis on the satisfaction of consumption and thewealth possession, and it gradually weakens the traditional moral standards of diligence,thrift and self-control. Meanwhile, Americans experience dramatic changes in their sociallife and value orientations under the influence of the consumer culture.Based on the context of consumer society, the thesis is aimed at studying TheodoreDreiser’s Sister Carrie from the perspective of consumer culture, and manages toinvestigate the representations and influences of consumer culture in the novel.The thesis consists of three parts: an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. Inthe introduction part, the thesis gives a brief introduction to Dreiser, his works, andliterature reviews. Meanwhile, the approach, uniqueness and significance of the study areintroduced briefly. Recently, the research on Dreiser’s works mainly focuses on threeaspects: his American dream, naturalism and pessimism. However, with the developmentof literary criticism, the perspective of literary works becomes more and more pluralistic.Therefore, this thesis will analyze the novel based on the context of consumer society,which has certain practical significance.The second part is the main body which consists of three chapters.Chapter One is mainly concerned with the theory of consumer culture in Dreiser’stime and the western origins of consumer culture. The inevitable rising of early consumersociety is explained in terms of economy, politics, culture, ideology and other aspects.Meanwhile, the main features of consumer culture are listed here in order to serve thetheological foundation for the following chapters. Dreiser accepts Darwin and Spenser’s law of evolution under the influences of that time, and it is these western ideas thatcontribute to the emergence of the consumer culture. Consumer culture is a dynamicconcept, and the sphere of consumer culture generally refers to man’s consumingorientations, ethics and habits. During the late nineteenth century and early twentiethcentury, the industrialization and urbanization flourish at an amazing speed in Americansociety. And with the popularity of Darwin’s law of evolution and natural selection,people’s value orientations and consuming behaviors also witness a great change; allthese conditions play an important role in the emergence of early consumer society.Chapter Two mainly relates the representations of consumer culture in Sister Carrie,and the materialized and hedonistic lifestyles under the influence of consumptionideology. In such a society, consumer culture places more emphasis on materialconsumption and people gain great satisfaction just through the possession of materials,which gradually weakens the traditional moral standards of hardworking and frugality. Inother words, consumer culture is a kind of the materialized lifestyles. It fully applaudsconsumption and lures people to consume ostentatiously in order to displaytheir purchasing luxurious commodities and consumptive powers. In the process ofworshiping materials, American society is gradually becoming the law of the jungle andtheir main life goal has already simplified a kind of the material satisfaction. Now, thepossession of wealth is no longer to satisfy people’s basic needs, but an indicator ofsocial identity and high-quality life. In the novel, Dreiser depicts in detail the characters’crazy cravings for materials. Living in such a materialistic society, people are full ofendless desires for various conspicuous consumptions, such as vogue clothes,magnificent residences, luxurious hotels, saloons and splendid theatres, etc.Chapter Three elaborates the indifferent, alienated kinship, and the appearance ofnew women under the influence of the consumer culture. With the development ofurbanization and commercialization, money and mutual benefit have already become themain principle holding together the interpersonal communications. In such a materializedsociety, family, marriage, and friendship are all branded with consumption-related, andthere is no love or any other affection between each other. The interpersonal relationshiphas shifted to a kind of take-and-give law, and the seeming friendliness is just thesynonym of “exchange”. On the other hand, it is the appearance of consumer culture that grants those traditional women a special opportunity to reshape themselves, and theybegin to challenge the traditional moral standards. More and more women begin to gooutside to work, throwing themselves into the social stage, and gain gradually theirindependence in economy. And they are no longer satisfied to play a role as traditionalwomen and men’s appendants. On the contrary, they want to become a group of new andeconomically and emotionally independent women in American society.Through analyzing Sister Carrie from the perspective of consumer culture, thethesis finally reaches a conclusion that Dreiser, as a participant in commercialized society,successfully depicts a vivid picture of consumer society in America under the influenceof consumption ideology. Thus, in our modern materialized society, it also has greatsignificance to analyze the consumer culture represented in Sister Carrie.