【正文】 s family members are as greatly incited by material and hedonistic desires as any other characters of the life is to some extent motivated by their hedonistic cravings instead of care, affection and love. This chapter probes into the consumption culture in Sister Carrie, in particular, the features of material consumption, emotion consumption and body consumption. A. The Feature of Material Consumption At the age of eighteen, Carrie leaves home for Chicago to seek happiness. In eyes of Carrie, the word “city” is the synonym for fortune, fashion, fort and relaxation. And the things related to money, beauty, clothes and entertainment are always her first concern. From the aspect of material, beautiful clothes and the house are two things to satisfy her desire, are the symbols of social identity and status as well. On the one hand, in this novel, the appearances of the two heroes are acpanied with their exquisite clothes. First, Drouet ,who is met by Carrie on the train: His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time, but since bee familiar as a business suit. The low crotch of the vest revealed a stiff shirt bosom of white and pink stripes. From his coat sleeves protruded a pair of linen cuffs of the same pattern, fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the mon yellow agates known as 11 cat39。s first appearance on the scene impresses the reader deeply with his strong desire for women and sex. All through the story, Drouet has been portrayed as a sex consumer. Aged as he is, Drouet is still crazed about wearing vogue clothes, dining at nice restaurants, and striving to go after beautiful women. He leads a fortable life, but like a living body without soul. Second, her sister?s family the Hansons represent the traditional lifestyle. In dire poverty, the Hansons can only afford the basic necessities for survival and have to confine their everyday activities to the regular cycle of early rising and long, harsh hours at the job. The main reason why they accept Carrie lies in the fact that they can charge her for board, thus make their ends meet. Carrie represents the new mercialized lifestyle. For Carrie, the pleasure and enjoyment of life depend on access to modities. In her mind, money means possibilities to get access to modities. Dreiser makes an interesting contrast between Minnie39。t want to go with these people who write to me. I know what kind they are.” “You oughtn39。t go anywhere. That39。er some quiet landscape, or the glimmer of beauty in sylvan places, or the show of soul in some passing eye, the heart knows and makes answer, following. It is when the feet weary and 7 hope seems vain that the heartaches and the longings arise. Know, then, that for you is neither surfeit nor content. In your rockingchair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel. 7 Why does Carrie still feel unsatisfactory after she has acplished both success and fame? It seems that Dreiser did not answer this question. The author attributes the answer to the disillusionment brought by America?s consumer culture at the turn from the l9th century to the 20th century. Consumption means satisfaction of people?s vanity, that is, consumption for consumption?s sake, instead of satisfaction of people?s simple material needs in the past. Consumerism makes people can not think about the significance of life, and the highest value in the world: truth, goodness, virtue and knowledge. The historical freedom of recreation is substituted by consumer culture. Recreation is no longer for the purpose of personal growth and soul recuperation. Moreover, people tend to lose their selfcontrol and service awareness: “I don39。?in The Theory of the Leisure Class(1902). But as sociologists, they mainly studied consumer society from the perspective of sociology, etc. Since the 1980s, researchers from various fields, such as ethics, history, anthropology, feminism have begun to study every aspect of modem consumption. In a particular period, that is, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, women have played an important role in the development of modem consumer culture acpanied by the improved social status of them. Due to the fact that people from the lower class in America were not rich enough to participate in consumption, the female consumers mentioned in this thesis at the turn of the 20th century are mainly women from the middle or upper class. 4 B. General Reflection of Consumer Culture in Sister Carrie 1. General review of Consumer Culture in Sister Carrie This novel gives a description of a girl called Caroline Meeber(Sister Carrie) from the countryside of the Columbia city in Wisconsin,who takes a train to Chicago without hesitance when she is eighteen because of her dream about the prosperous life in thriving metropolis. On the train, Carrie meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman, who is attracted to her because of her simple beauty and unspoiled manner. He describes a prosperous Chicago, an affluent metropolis, a big shopping mall to naive Carrie, which galvanized her. But upon discovering the steady round of toil and somber atmosphere at her sister39。 ideology v Acknowledgments My heartfelt gratitude is, first of all, delivered to my supervisor Professor Xu Tingting, for her unselfish and incisive guidance and professional advice in my study for Bachelor Degree, and for her elaborate reading and correcting of my earlier manuscript as well as her constant encourage