TheEmbodimentofConsumerisminSisterCarrie

1、the embodiment of consumerism in sister carrie摘 要 西奧多德萊塞是美國著名的作家之一。他的第一部長篇小說為嘉莉妹妹(1900)，通過農(nóng)村姑娘嘉莉到芝加哥謀生而成為名演員的故事，揭露了資本主義社會繁榮外衣掩蓋下的生存斗爭，刻意地描寫了人們在欲望和消費上的越界，以犀利的筆鋒描繪了道德敗壞。因而大多數(shù)批評家認為嘉莉妹妹宣揚的是道德敗壞和人性墮落。這部小說因被指控“有破壞性”而長期禁止發(fā)行，但一些散發(fā)出去的贈閱本卻引起了許多重要作家的注意。本文把嘉莉妹妹放到19世紀末二十世紀初美國的消費文化語境中來研究，從消費主義角度來探討和分析作者在作品中所描繪的生動

2、場景。消費文化放在當時的背景來講，它就意味著對物質(zhì)財富的擁有和奢華的消費方式，商品不僅意味著滿足人們的生活的基本需要，它已經(jīng)成為身份和地位的象征，人們更加注重自身的享受，甚至是將享受當作自己所必須承擔的一種責任。德萊塞的嘉莉妹妹通過大量的細節(jié)性描寫，諸如人們對服飾，金錢，豪宅的欲望，尤其是通過對嘉莉妹妹消費欲望的塑造，我們可以看出嘉莉妹妹正是這種新興消費文化的典型代表，并且深陷其中，作者通通過其作品大量寫實性的情節(jié)向我們展示了一幅19世紀末20世紀初美國消費文化的真實景象。 關(guān)鍵詞：美國社會；消費主義；嘉莉妹妹；消費欲望 abstract  theodore dreiser

3、 is the most famous american writer of naturalistism in america. his first novel, sister carrie, deliberately describes transgression on human desires and consumption, and social immorality with a sharp style.this paper put sister carrie in the early twentieth century of the context of consumer cult

4、ure in america, we explore and analyze a lively scene the author depicted in his works from the view of consumerism. on the background of consumer culture, it means that the owners of material wealth and luxury consumption style. goods not only refers to the basic needs of people's lives, it als

5、o has become a symbol of identity and status. people pay more attention to their own enjoyment, and even consier this enjoyment as a responsibility they bear. in dreiser's sister carrie, we can see sister carrie is a typical representative one of consumer culture by a lot of the details of the d

6、escription, such as people's clothing, money, desire luxury, especially through the consumption culture of sister carrie desire to shape. the authors show us large numbers of realistic works of the circumstances in the late 19th century and early 20th century through the true picture of the u.s.

7、 consumer culture.  key words: american society; consumptionism; sister carrie; consuming desires 1. introduction 1.1 auther theodore dreiser and his literary achievements known to be significant as a founding influence on the latter american naturalist school, theodore dreiser w

8、as one of america's greatest naturalist writers. he was the leading figure in a national literary movement that replaced the observance of victorian notions of propriety with the unflinching presentation of real-life subject matter. to a certain extent. his novels explored the new social problem

9、s that had arisen in a rapidly industrializing america . dreiser was bom in a large and poor family. so his education was irregular, but with the help of a sympathetic high school teacher, he spent two years at the university of indianaafter working as a journalist on several mid-western newspa

10、pers，in 1894 he went to new york, where he began a career in publishing. in the summer of 1899 when at age of twenty-eight, he began his first novel，sister carrie in writing form, his works were full of long sentences, and he paied a great attention to details. due to its important descriptive

11、technique in literature, the realism literature always created some unexpected effectiveness. qu qiubai said that theodore dreiser was a genius, like white venus in the boundless radiation. it was thus clear that, he was an outstanding writer, and his works were popular with others. sister carr

12、ie was in the treasure trove of american literature a bright pearl. 1.2 the story of sister carrie the book described a story a rural girl carrie went to chicago because of pursuing metropolitan material life. she had gone through the hardships of job hunting, diseases and unemployment. in

13、 order to survive, she becamed a salesman's mistress, later eloped to new york with a hotel manager. an accidental opportunity, he crowded into the upper society, it seemed that she had realized her desire, but at the end of the story, she still dreamed her own happiness in the rocking chair.

14、60;in sister carrie, actually, carrie was just like a sail in the sea that wanted to reach the shore but was forced to float because of the great wind around her. carrie was depicted a role who ran into the morass of desire, and human, like animals and insects, were driven by the desire with ex

15、tensive descriptions of department stores and working conditions in factory, conspicuous consumption and grinding poverty, and individual desire and class conflict, theodore dreier presented a world of american capitalism toward the end of the nineteenth century 1.3 social and cultural backgrou

16、nd of book as a writer coming from the bottom of the society, theodore dreiser always had the sympathy to the weak and the poor. jiang jian (1986:32) argued that in his views, nothing was absolute and people were easy to get lost under various forces of the environment. american women had been

17、effected by consumerism, and they began to challenge traditional moral standard when dreiser began to write sister carrie. the characters in his novels mostly came from the bottom of the society, and their ideas and habits were deeply influenced by the privileges and limitations of the social class.

18、 at the same time, the vigorous growth of consumer ideology performed vividly in sister carrie. combining the consumerism in detail, dreiser kept paying attention to humanity, and tried to reflect the truth of life and the thought of people in his time. he imagined the society as a blind machine and

19、 was out of control, and people accepted such a operation. to dreiser, he was pretty willing to tell people his own feeling and thought about life.1.4 the layout of the thesis in this thesis，the novel sister carrie is going to be placed in the context of consumer culture，and massive efforts wil

20、l be made on the studies of consumer culture. the emphasis would be placed on two aspects of the novel：the content and the artistic techniques we will discuss the embodiment of consumerism in sister carrie. this thesis consists of four chapters. chapter 1 is an introduction to this th

21、esis which covers 4 sections. section one talks about auther theodore dreiser and his literary achievements. section two focuses on the the story of sister carrie. section three talks about social and cultural background of book. section three introduces the overview of the thesis. chapter 2 ex

22、plores consumerism and american literature. section one mainly introduce the rise of consumerism in american society. first, introduction. second, explains the influences of consumerism upon american literature. chapter 3 describes consumerism in sister carrie. section one is concerned with sis

23、ter carries american dream. section two, sister carries life process. section three points out consumerism as the cultural background of american tragedy. section three explors analysis of consuming facts from the angle life and llust. chapter 4 is the conclusion of this thesis. section one exp

24、lores the social comment. section two presents limitations. section three makes a conclusion of the embodiment of consumerism in sister carrie. in a word, the knowledge of article analyses, especially the influence of consumerism will contribute to our understanding about sister carrie.2. consu

25、merism and american literature 2.1 the rise of consumerism in american society in real economic terms, consumerism is a public consumption mode,which emerge with modernization, especially the industrialization, the urbanization and the development of the company, in order to satisfy the de

26、sire passes the point of supplying all the basic essentials of life. from the social level, consumerism is a kind of expression of cultural attitudes, values and way of life, which gradually forms with mass consumption mode permeating the social fields. it has the distinctive features of materialism

27、, it has the distinctive features of materialism, and consumption is the core, so commodity is regarded as the main form of self-expression, the main basis of identity, and a symbol of high quality of happy life. 2.1.1 introduction from the civil war to the end of the 19th century, the gil

28、ded age in american history, was a process of industrialization, urbanization and the development of economy, and america had became the world's center of the second industry revolution, realizing the transitions from agricultural country to industrial country, freedom capitalism to monopoly cap

29、italism. economic development and technical progress was the material basis of consumerism in the bud. in this period, america experienced great changes in social life and social culture, at the same time, people's living standards had improved. social change was the ideological basis

30、of consumerism in the bud. liberalism stimulated millions of americans to dream to suceed through personal struggle. the development of the economy and the accumulation of wealth had become the possibility and necessity of mass consumption. on the one hand, the new commodities in shopping mall

31、aroused people's interest, and department stores also symbolized their confidence, because people could achieve their wishes through the pursuit of the consumption. during this period, the americans admired the way of new life, and it made the consumption idea and consumption patterns change. on

32、 the other hand, the development of urbanization and increasing working pressure catered to peoples desire to seek the exciting things.  when america entered a new century, a british observer (1892:89) wrote this, today, the development of american surprising material impress the visitor. socie

33、ty encouraged people to pursue personal happiness and enjoy lives, so consumerism was up. from the 19th century to the 20th century, a great change of american society was, the economy couldnt maintain a normal operation unless the large-scale production and consumption. 2.1.2 influences of con

34、sumerism upon american literature in fact, literariness changes with times, in the past was, now here again, so hereafter. this is an internal law of literature development. the writers thought and work processes are inevitably effected by social cultural environment. in the context of consumer

35、 culture, we can better understand the cultural meaning that contains in the works. prosperous commodity society changes the life value of american mainstream society. thrifty consumption is replaced by luxury，most americans pursue luxury consumption in order to get more wealth. in the consumer soci

36、ety, consumption is not only for the consumer goods, but also for the value contained in the consumer goods. people will build a new cultural identity pattern through the symbolic value of consumption. not concern with consumer goods, people want to realize the significance between ego identity and

37、social relations through consumption. when consumerism as a kind of life style comes, may we face a new literature? in the spirit of consumptive life, people face a piece of strange mirror, when you look at it, your appearance seems different, and you will follow your mirror image to survive. s

38、ometimes literature becomes this mirror.  city is the hot bed for consumption growing and spreading,and also is the best stage for literature to performance and expansion. there is a phenomenon, the relationship between literature and consumption should be found in cities, so more and more lite

39、rature concerns with the consumption. like dreisers sister carrie, it not noly provids a story about spiritual consumption, but also a guide book about life: well-dressed, elegant environment and being wealthy are persistent pursuit of life, perhaps these only temporarily display their beauty, the t

40、rue meaning of life is unreachable. with the commodity era arriving, and the changeable life style, consumption becomes god, and the changes of culture and literature are on the way to the world. the works embody the connotation of consumerism on the market can be popular, so at this time it is

41、 a rare commodity. according to the theory of keynesian, this is called effective demand . with the stimulation of strong material desires, the phenomenon of super order and super standard is more real than any previous era, and these factors generally move from their the dark corners of hearts to s

42、urface layer. in its guidance, the narrative modes in the literature appear great changes: narrative by the ideology obviously turns to personal little narrative, and the care for fate turns to feel, experience and imagination. the individual experience in writing plays a decisive role in the daily

43、life. but the literature prefer caring about the personal spirit and soul to caring about the market. when the social develop in a certain extent, people's heart always meet a crisis, and always want to search a place to lay the soul, we can say this is spiritual garden. soul cannot always

44、wandered. literature is able to play this role. under the influence of consumerism, the desire to live is firstly the commodity possession, which identify personal status and grade. every narrator never misses any chance to show his broad and profound knowledge in brand. coming down to symbols,

45、 these commodities are not only the decoration and props, every item will mainly represent a great meaning, which is the source of desire, and the final destination of desire. this is the unique landscapeera of consumerism. secondly, the body becomes another landscape in consumer society. the body i

46、s a surface feather of consumer society, and performs in every chapter in the literature. in sister carrie, the naked desire for consumption floats on the surface of a paper like luxuriant foam. 3. consumerism in sister carrie 3.1 the contrast between the poor and the rich  the influe

47、nce of the dominant values in the money-oriented consumer society, the gap between the poor and the rich become wider and wider. we can find contrasts throughout the novel：carrie chooses drouet by contrasting him with hansons，and later she chooses hurstwood by contrasting him with drouebut the

48、most remarkable one is the contrast between the poor and the richthis contrast constitute a dialectical progression.  carrie had experienced the sharp contrast between the poor and the rich even before she got to chicago. on the train, when she saw so many fresh and magnificent things, she aspi

49、red to become beautiful dancers on stage, not because she liked dancing itself, but more of a chasing its scenery and mysterious side. but the well-clothed lady and their elegant behavior made her feel shame, and she felt herself was not a member of them, realizing the change of affectional atmosphe

50、re at once. when she found a job, she stayed with a group of rude behavior, and this made her feel very depressed. their hard work all day just wanted to have a house of their ownthey dared not to think of going to the theatre occasionallyall these were too far away from carries dream of the city li

51、fe. here dreiser expresses his doubts about the consumer society by depicting the tough 1ife of the poor and the conspicuous consumption of the rich 3.2 sister carries american dream 3.2.1 introduction the american dream has been a theme that american writer explor. in sister car

52、rie, this theme throughout the story. by that time，and especially by the end of the century, women had begun to play a major role in the new industrial society，and more and more women received education, which gave them more chances to choose work, and working outside the home, whats more it would g

53、rant women financial independence from tlleir fathers and husbands carrie was in young age, bright, timid, and full of illusions of ignorance and youth. in her first thought, she just wants to find a job and live a better life in chicago, because it is not only good for carrie herself, but also

54、 good for her family. carrie knows that it is hard to live in a big city, but her desire for wealth and enjoyment drives her to leave her home and starts a venture. in sister carrie, under the economic push of that period，as a job seeker from the country to the big city, carrie undergoes great

55、changesshe grows from inexperience to experience，from anonymity to prosperity, and most importantly, from a woman depending on men to an independent famous actress. in this process, consumer culture plays an important role，because consumption itself becomes a central focus of social life carrie

56、's first choice in life is, when she is leaving rural hometown to chicago to pursue his dream of happiness, and the first happiness is very simple, better than the old beauty of life. therefore,at that time carrie's living environment is poor. she will only consider better than the former li

57、fe as the goal, rather than the pursuit of unpractical happiness.  as the train throwing intimate csenery away, carrie's mentality quickly moves to guess “what is a city of chicago” . this implies that her adaptability to environment is very strong, at the same time implies that she will ti

58、mely adjust his position with the constantly changing fate environment, also reflects in the prevailing conditions of consumerism, she will update her pursuit of the goal. carrie's second life choice is, when she leave sister's family, the traditional moral, to the salesman's and li

59、ve with him together. sister carrie accepts this new moral concept, the prevailing ideology puritan ethics, which lead to pleasure-seeking. she goes to the most extreme lengths to achieve the goal. from the novel context, we can see the methods and ways in the process of chasing her own ideal dream.

60、 in her view, no matter what methods are reasonable as long as helping her achieve purpose.  in this consumerism tide, the whole society is undergoing sweep, so people who lives in which will have the baptism of tide. carrie boldly accept the baptism, and join in the rolling tide and struggle against fate. carrie's third life choice is made after