The American Dream In The Context Of Industrialization And Consumer Culture

Theodore Dreiser is one of the most influential American novelists in the early20th century. Sister Carrie, as his first novel, not only makes him famous in the world, but also paves the way for his literary creating. The novel describes Carrie’s pursuit for her dream from a poor country girl to a Broadway superstar. When getting close to her dream, Carrie only feels the endless emptiness and hopelessness. This is because industrialization and consumer culture in America developed rapidly at the turn of20th century. Strongly affected by them, people’s values, lifestyle and social relations had a great change. The American Dream was hard to come true.From the perspectives of industrialization and consumer culture, the author tries to analyze the reasons for the disillusionment of Carrie’s American Dream in this thesis. Then the influences of industrialization and consumer culture will be examined, which inspires today’s readers, especially contemporary Chinese readers.Firstly, the author analyzes the influence of American industrialization. Due to the influence of industrialization, lots of cities appear and develop fast, which attracts a great number of country people to move to city, thus deepens the gap between the rich and the poor and results in class conflicts in society. Moreover, the interpersonal relations become indifferent and alienated in consumer society. Interpersonal communications are mainly based on money and mutual benefits. Then, the author of the thesis states that Sister Carrie reflects the materialized and hedonistic lifestyles under the influence of consumer culture. In such consumer culture, people are encouraged and lured to consume extravagantly in order to show competence and power, which gradually weakens the traditional moral standards of thrift and makes the life goal become a simplified material satisfaction. Under such circumstances, consumption is no longer to satisfy people’s basic needs, but to show social identity and high-quality life.By analyzing Sister Carrie from the perspectives of industrialization and consumer culture, the author of the thesis finally concludes that in such a society, people pay attention to material consumption and hope to get great satisfaction through the possession of materials. The result is that the American Dream can’t come true. Moreover, Sister Carrie gives us a warning that in a materially abundant modern society, people should not blindly pursue the material comforts, but are aware of the importance of spirit and satisfaction.