The Illusion Of Class Identity Construction

The American is one of the early works of literary master Henry James. This worknot only demonstrates the cultural differences between Europe and America commonlyfound in his novels of “international themes”, but also reflects James’s insights into thesign consumption in the context of capitalist commodity economy. In the late19thcentury, with the advancement of commercialization, the abundance of material goodsand the improvement of consumption ability, people no longer consumed purely inaccordance with life needs. The traditional consumption concept based on Use Valueand Exchange Value was gradually affected by a newly-born consumption concept.Commodities were endowed with new significance and became signs to display one’ssocial status and identity or to distinguish between social classes. The sign value thusbecame the target of pursuit and dominated the lives and acts of consumers. Theyattempted to express themselves and construct class identity through consumingcommodities with certain symbolic meaning. The American has vividly outlined akingdom of “signs”. First appears characters’ high consumption ability, which is the“sign” of success and status. This is followed by signs for representing identity, such asdress, residence, traveling; moreover, women, objectified as commodities, are put up onthe marriage market or in the society. Although the characters are various, the commongoal of those from the comparatively lower classes is to construct class identity with ahigher class through “sign consumption”.On the basis of Jean Baudrillard’s theory of sign consumption which holds thatobject is not only functional, but also a carrier of a sign so that consumer behavior ismore of sign consumption than object consumption, and the aim of sign consumption isto construct social identity and class identity through consuming this object withsymbolic meaning, this thesis analyzes phenomenon of sign consumption in TheAmerican on the basis of the social and cultural context, with the hope to reveal theillusionary quality of the comparatively lower class’s attempt to achieve class identitywith a higher class through sign consumption.The thesis first reveals the high consumption ability for sign consumption, and thenthe main forms of manifestation of sign consumption in The American, for instancedress, residence, traveling as well as the objectification of women. Then, it analyzes thecharacters’ attempts to construct a higher class identity in the context of sign consumption. These involve the imitation of those whose status is much higher, in twoways: to consume conspicuously like those of the higher class identity, and to imitatetheir manners; the commoditized marriage with sign value is used as a rung of socialclass. In the end, the thesis reveals the illusion of constructing class identity. The finalaim of all these attempts–to build up a new identity among the higher class people–isjust a mirage since, on the one hand, even if consumption has become the main way ofidentification, the resistance from traditional ways of identification, such as birth status,religion, manner and moral value cannot be ignored; and on the other hand, there are inthe first place many unequal elements for the comparatively lower class to constructclass identity through sign consumption, such as, the irrevocable past. Newman makesgreat efforts to accumulate material wealth, but the fortune made by his humble workmeans no dignity for the Bellegardes. His businessman identity cannot be erased byshowing his pecuniary strength and imitating the ways of the upper class. In the secondplace, people like Newman and Noémie play a passive role in imitating the way ofupper-class consumption to construct higher class identity because of their unfavorableposition. Those disadvantaged elements eventually result in their failure in constructinga higher class identity in the society of surviving European aristocracy.The analysis of the phenomenon of sign consumption in The Americandemonstrates that James has observed the negative impact caused by the capitalistcommodity economy and thus he has voiced his criticism of the consumption behaviordominated by “sign” and his great concerns over the consumer behavior in the future.James’s depiction of the consumer behavior and desire of the various characters,especially Newman and Noémie, serves to prove that the class difference betweenpeople can not be erased through objects in a society in which the social class isrelatively closed, especially in the aristocracy, money, imitation; any wish to achievesuch a change through consumption is just an illusion...