Consumer Culture in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie
Consumer Culture inTheodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie
Abstract
Theodore Dreiser, the American novelist (1871-1945), wasa keen witness of the huge industrial changes in America.Dreiser minutely portrayed the lives of the poor in societybecause he had experienced poverty both as a child andan adult and he could also depict the lives of the rich ashe was a journalist who was in everyday contact with thefacts of such people‘s life. In one o f his novels, SisterCarrie, Dreiser, impersonally, represents the struggles ofa poor girl who finds her way up the social scale. Carrie,the protagonist of the story, lives in an industrial andcommodified society in which people find their identityin items of consumption. In this article, the researchersattempt to examine the dexterity of Dreiser in portrayingthe inner and outer lives of characters in such a societyand in the light of the theory of consumerismand the way this portrait approximates real life.
Key words: Sister Carrie; Dreiser; Commodified Society; Consumerism
美国小说家西奥多·德莱塞（1871-1945），是一个美国庞大的产业变化敏锐的见证者。德莱塞精细地刻画了社会中穷人的生活，因为他作为一个孩子和一个成人都经历过贫穷，作为一个记者，日常接触各种人，他还丰富的描绘了生活。在他的小说中，德莱塞客观的用“嘉莉妹妹”代表了一个可怜的小女孩，努力地寻找通往上层社会的路。嘉莉，故事的主角，住在一个人们用消费水平来衡量身份的工业和商品化的社会中。在这篇文章中，研究人员试图运用消费主义相关理论剖析德莱塞所刻画的社会，并尽可能地与真实生活联系在一起，研究其内部和外部深层意义，
关键词：嘉莉妹妹；德莱塞；商品化；消费主义
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 A Brief Introduction to Dreiser and Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser was an American naturalism writer in the 20th century, and he took an important role in the world literary history. Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1871. His father was a German textile worker, who became an American immigrant in order to avoid serving in the army, while, his mother was a peasant‘s daughter. Dreiser was born in a large but poor family, so he lived a hard life and did not receive a good education. At the age of 15, he went out to earn his living. When he was 18, a female high school teacher sponsored him to go to the university for one
year. In 1892, he worked as a journalist in Chicago Global Newspaper. In 1894, he moved to New York. His first novel Sister Carrie came out in 1900. In 1911, he finished Jennie Gerhardt. Since then, his creation came into a strong period, and he began to write the famous work Trilogy of Desire, The Genius and American Tragedy, and so on. At the year of 1941, he was elected to be the chairman of American Writer Association. He then joined Communist Party USA at 1945 and passed away at the same year. Lawson, the American progressive writer praised him as ―Our own Gorky, and Romain Rolland of American version.‖
Dreiser is quite different from any other American novelists. He has his own particular writing style. Indeed, his writing style is simple and easy. He can describe different characters with the use of plain language. He always uses strong contrast to set off characters‘ life and fate. Besides, he is good at creating huge social life scene. The stories he creates are not quite complicated, but they can deeply reveal social problems. He always pays attention to the whole structure to make the story complete. His stories often involve a seeker or quester – sometimes driven by desire, sometimes by other motives – who finds at the end of the novel thathe has returned to where he started. It is possible tovisualize Dreiser‘s novels as a graphic irony –the charactersbelieve they are pushing forward but they are really moving ina circle. So, in this way, his works can give readers some unexpected effectivenesses.
In a word, Dreiser is a great naturalist writer—the one who dares to fight against American tradition, while, Sister Carrie becomes a morning star in his writing career.
Sister Carrie – a famous work knocking at the door of the 20th century in 1900 is a realism masterpiece. The story mainly focused on three characters –Carrie, Hurstwood, and Drouet. Carrie was born in a country of West America. Though she lived in a poor family, she still had a strong vanity, and always looked forward to rich city life. Then she decided to go to Chicagofor her dream. In Chicago, she lived in her sister Minnie‘s home. The life was not as good as she ever thought, so Carrie had to look for a job to make a living. But she was often left out in the cold when living in such an inanimate family. What‘s worse, once Carrie lost her job, she was forced to go back to the country. However, she didn‘t want to do so, and went to Drouet for help—a salesman whom she came across in the train. Then, she became Drouet‘s mistress, and lived with him together. After Drouet introduced Hurstwood–a hotel manager to Carrie, Hurstwood soon fell in love with Carrie and tried to seduce her with all kinds of methods. They finally eloped to New York together. However, experiencing a series of failure, Hurstwood used up money and collapsed finally. At
last, he committed suicide when getting on the beach. As a result of chance, Carrie became a famous star and got the upper reaches of society. But she still felt empty and couldn‘t find the true meaning of life. With loneliness and desolation, the only thing Carrie could do was just sitting in the rocking chair, dreaming happiness that she would never have.
1.2 Previous Studies and Comments on Sister Carrie
Dreiser was the 1st outstanding writer in American literature of the 20th century, and hewas the pioneer of modern American fiction. Many critics thought that Dreiser dared to make innovations and had broken those traditional thoughts in American literary. Elliot, the chief editor of Columbia Literary History of the United States, thought that Dreiser had created a new style. His works were for ―another readers, another group focusing on the consumer culture, rather than aristocratic culture.‖Actually, Dreiser advocated a new ideology. Sister Carrie obviously showed the influences of consumerism on Dreiser himself, and it just indicated his dissatisfaction with the Puritan moral ethics that had suppressed people‘s desire, which precisely the new consumer ideology advocated. From this point of view, Dreiser was in favor of those consumers‘behavior with the effects of consumer ideology. He could not completely break with the old ideology which represented the relations of production. Therefore, he also gave criticism and suppression on the unethical behavior of those kinds of characters like Carrie. So, we can find that Dreiser held a complex and contradictory attitude to the new ideology.
Dreiser‘s fictions like mirrors reflected the evils and conflicts of the social life at that age. However, it seemed that no other writers like Dreiser revealed the darkness of bourgeois society, but also shaped some characters that always swam with stream and did things with strong desire, just as characters in Sister Carrie. Just because Dreiser could expose the hypocritical veil of the upper class and criticized the weakness of capitalism through the description of the working class, much dispute aroused among some critics. The early evaluation of Dreiser could be divided into two categories. A critic who was most in recognition of Dreiser was H. L. Mencken, pointing out that Dreiser was not the follower of Norris or Zola, and he could ―take profound sense of wonder into literature.‖The other group was represented by Stewart Sherman. He accused Dreiser of not describing the real American society and people, but viewing them as animals. Some early critics mostly belonged to the biographical criticism of the traditional history. Later, some new ways of comments
on it turned up, such as Freud‘s psychoanalysis, the criticism of feminism and post-structuralism. In recent years, many scholars have tried to analyze Sister Carrie from more different perspectives. Professor Zhang Fangde and Zhang Xiangting both made comments on the transition from goods consumption to symbolic consumption. Professor Yu Guofei, Zhang Ailing, Tianjing and Chen Zhenhua have done some studies and comments from the perspective of consumer culture. Besides, there has been a new critical perspective in Professor Wang Rong‘s study—focusing on the aspect of ―New Woman‖. The domestic and foreign research situation not only lies in its achievement increasing rapidly, but the expansion of its depth and width. So, we can better understand the profound significance of this work.
During these years, many researchers viewed Dreiser as a master of naturalism or realism. In their opinions, Dreiser was the revelator of the darkness of American capitalism. However, they overlooked the interdependent relationship between Dreiser and the mainstream society at that time. In addition, researchers viewed Dreiser‘s works in the same way, which was not quite accurate. Because society, politics and culture were changing all the time, Dreiser‘s writing ideas were basically in a dynamic state. Novels in the early time mainly showed his hedonism, while, in his middle age, especially in his later years, his pursuit transformed from material to spirit. Therefore, Dreiser‘s works are full of varieties. With all these mentioned above, when we do research on this work, we should put it more into the cultural environment of the 20th century of the United States. At the same time, we should dig out its writing ideas and methods, so that we can excavate the interrelationship between the main ideology and Dreiser himself in the cultural environment at that moment.
Chapter 2 Consumer Culture in Sister Carrie
2.1 Consumption and Women
Form 1850s onward, consumerism was speeding rapidly in both western countries and in America, and intellectuals, clearly, responded to consumerism differently and according to diverse motives. Regarding the importance of consumption, it is not surprising that Baudrillard devoted several of his books including The System of Objects (1968), The Consumer Society: Myths & Structures (1970), For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972), The Mirror of Production(1973), and
Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976) to the study of this crucial issue. According to Baudrillard consumption has a system similar to that of language.He views consumption as a discourse or language or in Levi-Straussian term a kinship system. It is one way of communication between people and therefore it can be discussed through the terms sign, signifier, signified, and code. When consumption is viewed as a system consisting of endless signs, certain features of a modern consumer society can be understood and analyzed systematically. The abundant objects create for the individual an always-felt sense of lack, reification of emotions, identity problems, and break of ties with other individuals. Of course, women‘s position is further complicated as they are seen as objects in this society.
Women are seen as active consumers in society. The individual is said to please himself, because it is in this way that he can please others. This objective is mainly directed at women. Women are the main target of self-indulgence by the force of the ―myth of woman‖. According to Sullerot, culture defines for women the definition of being a woman, making herself pleasing to others and in this way the woman is actually consuming herself. Therefore, not only women‘s relation to others is based on consumption but also their relation to themselves.
2.2 Sister Carrie—A New Woman Image
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the consumer ideology gradually took the place of production ideology. The consumer ideology mainly ―emphasized the possession of cost and material, and it weakened the thrift, savings, self-control and other traditional moral standards.‖ So, such a kind of consumer culture promoted the rise of ―New Women‖. With the influence of consumer culture, women didn‘t consume for daily need but their vanity. Their appetite and lust for material even became a fashion. ―New Women‖ most had their own self-consciousness and always had dependent characteristics. Their opinions on sex were very open. They were not bounded by their family and usually appeared in public areas that belonged to men. What‘s more, ―New Women‖ dared to challenge traditional moral standards. In their opinions, women should dress themselves well and enjoy life happily. While, Carrie—a character shaped by Dreiser, was the prominent representative of ―New Women‖.
At the beginning of the story, the writer wrote, ―Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was, nevertheless, her guiding characteristic…And yet she was interested in her charm, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to
gain in material things.‖ In Carrie‘s heart, something called desire was coming around the corner. In the train for Chicago, she came across Drouet—a canvasser with bright dress, whose attracting appearance left deep impressions on Carrie: ―The fat purse, the shiny tan shoes, the smart new suit, and the air with which he did things, built up for her a dim world of fortune, of which he was the center. It disposed her pleasantly toward all he might do. ‖ In Chicago, Carrie lived in his sister Minnie‘s. However, Mr. and Mrs. Hanson‘s house was just a flat, most inhabited by families of laborers and clerks. ―The walls of the rooms were discordantly papered. The floors were covered with matting and the hall laid with a thin rag carpet,‖ which made Carrie feel the drag of a lean and narrow life. So she had to look for a job to make a living. On the way of looking for a job, she was much affected by the remarkable displays of dress goods and jewelry. ―She could not help feeling the claim of each trinket and valuable upon her personally, and yet she did not stop. There was nothing there which she could not have used—nothing which she did not long to own. The dainty slippers and stockings, the delicately frilled skirts and petticoats, the laces, ribbons, hair-combs, purses, all touched her with individual desire, and she felt keenly the fact that not any of these things were in the range of her purchase.‖When Carrie saw things that could make her pretty, her desire soon surged on. Once she saw the shop-girl s‘ nature and appearance, a flame of envy lighted in her heart. ―She realized in a dim way how much the city held-wealth, fashion, ease-every adornment for women.‖In Carrie‘s heart, at this moment, she just longed for dress and beauty. In such a prosperous and lively city, Carrie was gradually touched by those beautiful things. In contrary to Minnie, whose thoughts were staid and solemnly adapted to a condition, Carrie had her own consciousness. She didn‘t want to save money, but she would like to buy dress and jewelry, or go to the theatre to enjoy life.
While, life was not always as perfect, the job in the shoe factory was not as easy as Carrie thought. She thought that people there were quite dirty and vulgar. Every week, she should pay her board—four dollars, so that she had no money to buy clothes. Then she lost her job due to her illness. Fortunately, she met Drouet again, which became her turning point. Then he even gave twenty dollars to Carrie. Though Carrie contradicted whether she should accept it or not, there was no wonder that the feeling with taking the money was so fantastic: ―Her need was so dire. Now she would buy a nice pair of pretty button shoes. She would get stockings, too, and a skirt, and, and…She had got beyond, in her desires, twice the purchasing power of her bills.‖
Afterwards, seduced by Drouet, Carrie became his mistress and lived together with him in a rent room. Drouet often took Carrie out to see many new people and things, so Carrie‘s vision gradually opened up. She had seen many elegant mansions. When time grew, she began to be dissatisfied with the current situation. After she knew Hurstwood—a bar manager, she threw herself at his feet for his handsome appearance. And then they developed into lovers. In fact, Carrie chose Hurstwood just because she took a fancy to a more prosperous and decent life that he represented. She believed that marrying him would be happy forever, which made Carrie elope with Hurstwood to New York together after she knew his true features. In essence, it was her strong desire for material that made Carrie so easily ―love‖ one man from another. Later, Hurstwood came down in the world, and Carrie abandoned him. After she became a famous Broadway star, her life became more and more creditable, and her consumption capacity grew stronger and stronger. However, she seemed not to be quite satisfactory with her possessions, and she still dreamed of happiness that she would never get. From this, it could be seen that Carrie became a new woman image in such a materialistic society. She was a consumer, even a product of consumer culture. She precisely represented people‘s consciousness or concept in that era.
Carrie is treated as a commodity by men in society and therefore she cannot be herself but what others like her to be. This point is manifestly exemplified in the passage where Carrie has performed her first amateur theatrical role in Chicago. Both Hurstwood and Drouet come to appreciate her enormously more than before. According to Crane , here Carrie is transformed to the desired object for her lovers when they see that all the audience desire her. When she is ―carried away by her role and not really aware of the audience,‖ she in fact becomes like ―an item in a store window—something looked at that does not look back‖. This passage is paradigmatic of Carrie viewed as a commodity all throughout the novel. Other instances among many which highlight the inferiority of women are when Carrie is searching for a role in theater in New York and a manager of a theater judges Carrie as he would horseflesh, or the description of her fi rst manager that has ―great contempt for any assumptio n of dignity or innocence on the part of these young women‖. In another instance, walking with Carrie, Drouet admiringly points to other women‘s manners indirectly encouraging Carrie to be like them.
In this way, she is not only transformed into a ―desirable ?woman‘,‖ but also is ―reconstructed as an ?American‘ and incorporated within an emerging national commodity market‖. When Carrie breaks up with Drouet, he reminds her of what he
has done for her and Carrie answers that he has only made a plaything of her. As McAleer says:
It is true that Carrie gives her heart to no one, but, then, no one ever really wanted it. To Drouet, she was a part of the wardrobe of conspicuous affluence, to Hurstwood, a surrogate to negate middle-age disillusionment.
When women are regarded as commodities in society, they come to be dominated by men. Carrie is led by the desires of Drouet and Hurstwood hither and thither. Carrie has a ―passive and receptive rather than an active and aggressive nature‖, and therefore is a malleable subject to be dominated by the forces of society. And she is not alone in that, her sister Minnie also has a thin and weary figure and her ―ideas of life‖ are colored by her husband‘s and she is hardened ―into narrower conceptions of pleasure and duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth‖. Hanson‘s shadow dominates Minnie and marginalizes her. Moreover, once at dinner, the Vances (Carrie‘s neighbors in New York) talk about a popular book of the time ―Molding a Maiden‖ by Albert Ross. The title is suggestive of the way women are treated in a consumer society, as the verb ―mold‖ is used for upbringing a girl as if she is a statue or a doll, and the attitude of Ames (the cousin of Mrs. Vance and the only character who is critical of the spectacles of consumption) who says this book is cheap, affirms this .
1.3 The Significance of This Research
The creation of Sister Carrie came out at the occasion of the reform of the United States. The production primarily ideology was gradually being replaced by consumer ideology. As the economy developed rapidly, industrialization and urbanization had reached an unexpected level. At the end of 19th century, there were varieties of commodity in the US Department Store, which attracted many writers‘ and consumers‘attentions. Ideologically, Darwin‘s theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest were in vogue, and people‘s thoughts were changing obviously. Their desires for material became stronger and stronger, and the thrift of Puritan ethics was cast off. Besides, the bohemian consumption trend became a mainstream. People‘s opinions were gradually influenced by consumer culture, so was Dreiser himself. He always showed his ideas through his works, and with his pen, he described people‘s different fates in the materialistic society when consumer culture rose.
The characters in Sister Carrie are mainly consumers. They are keen to find their own way in the city, and always long for gorgeous clothes to show off their status.
Besides, they look forward to live in luxurious accommodations. All in all, they are all addicted into endless lust, which is the great influence of consumer culture. Therefore, characters in this novel are all products of consumer culture. So it is feasible to study these characters from the perspective of consumer culture. These characters‘behaviors are the real reflections of American society at that moment. Their different consequences can make people think a lot—should consumerism be promoted or suppressed in the world? So, it‘s necessary to study Dreiser‘s novel to reveal the writer‘s creative ideas and shape new images from the perspective of consumer culture. Moreover, it has certain academic values.
Dreiser‘s Sister Carrie not only reflects American social conditions at that moment, but also shows us some universal phenomena and problems at the period of the development of human society. In such a rapid development of commodity economy today, China is in the transition period to the consumer society. There are many people like characters in this novel, full of endless desire and pursuit of money, living for the satisfaction of material, status and wealth. This is just the embodiment of the consumption of ideology acting on human beings. Besides, there have been many characters like ―Consumer Hero‖ appearing in today‘s literature work. So this work has great influences on the literature writing.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper mainly focuses on Dreiser‘s masterpiece Sister Carrie, setting in the consumer culture, and explores the new character type ―Consumer Hero‖.
R egarding Baudrillard‘s theory ofconsumption which reveals the way the individuals in amodern consumer society suffer from the disillusionmentof their desires, estrangement from other humans, andthe suppression of their subjectivity, one can find SisterCarrie an appropriate example to verify the abovepoints. Dreiser realistically presents the modern societyof America which was expanding rapidly in terms ofindustry, technology, population, and commerce. Thereader painfully experiences the two sides of this societywhich Dreiser portrays.
The outer aspect of this society which mesmerizesCarrie all throughout the novel, is the realm ofconsumption marked by alluring and enchanting objectswhich are supposed by everyone, except Ames, to berepresentatives of happiness, success, freedom, andidentity, and in short the gateways of the so-called“walled-city‖. The
inner aspect ofthe consumer society, which Carrie abhors, is the realm ofproduction which is marked by back-breaking jobs donein dingy and suffocating places. Dreiser pays the same ifnot more attention to the latter realm because it is actuallywhere the pillars of the realm of consumption are erected.The wealthy heads of companies fuel this vicious circle ofproduction and consumption.
Dreiser in this novel realistically portraysa rapidly developing society in terms of the productionof commodities and the needs corresponding to themat the same time. The people, like the characters of thisnovel, are fascinated by the lures of the market place andare given assurance that their final salvation lies in thisrealm. They are even ready to sacrifice their moralityand independence for getting into this walled-city, notknowing that those who are within do not find the finalsalvation promised by the use of commodities.
―Consumer Hero‖ was a new character type emerging in American literature in the late 19th century and early 20th century. During that period, consumption gradually became the mainstream of the society, and people‘s consumption concept and values had ever changed. Dreiser was also deeply influenced. He no longer went on the same way of imitation as previous writers, who always established decent character types. On the contrary, he portrayed different images as ―negative characters‖. To Carrie, she changed her life relying on her own ―charm‖, and in the opinion of the world, such a character should be punished. However, she wasn‘t blamed by others for her immorality, but was eventually way up there with true star status. In Dreiser‘s opinion, such a figure was totally in compliance with the prevalent theory of ―the survival of the fittest‖. With Dreiser‘s description, Carrie multifacetedly developed and showed a wide range of personality. She also became the emerging rookie—―Consumer Hero‖. The shaping of such a character type became a discourse conspiracy with the popular consumer culture. People no more restricted their desires, but fully expressed them. This also showed that Dreiser turned to advocate consumerism instead of the traditional Puritanism. At the same time, the emergence of ―Consumer Hero‖ became a breakthrough in the traditional thoughts of American literature, and created a new character type. It also identified the liberation of American fiction and would bring a new literature revolution.
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