【正文】 nd moral choice. For example Stuart P. Sherman condemned Dreiser in his famous essay The Naturalism of Mr. Dreiser that Dreiser had eradicated“distinctively human values?and had made“animal instincts the supreme factor in human life. 2 Since the middle 1980s, American critics have attempted to open new areas by laying importance to the relationship of Dreiser?s thought and work to largescale social and cultural issues which arose from an urban society and consumer economy. For 2 example, in Just Looking:Consumer Culture in Dreiser,Gissing and Zola, Rachel Bowlby has made a detailed research of the department store in Sister Carrie as a microcosm of the urban consumer culture devouring sister Carrie in Chicago. Domestic study concerning Dreiser and his works started from the 1930s. From 1930s on, a series of Dreiser?s works have been translated into Chinese, attracting great attention among Chinese readers. But the criticism of his works started from 1978. Researchers have begun to explore Dreiser?s main novels from various perspectives like naturalism, feminism, Freudian Psychology as well as realism, making the study on Dreiser and his works popular. In recent years, Jiang Daochao has opened a new area by studying Dreiser?s works from a new perspectivethe consumer culture. Since then, there have appeared many works about the consumer culture in Dreiser?s novels, and they mainly focus on the influence of consumer culture on Dreiser? s writing whereas the important role of consumer culture in women?s identity construction and their social status. Before the 1980s, feminist scholars strongly criticized consumer culture, and they thought that women are the victims of the maledominated consumer society during the process of their consumption and are consumed by men. The body of this thesis contains two chapters. In chapter one, the author introduces the concept of consumer culture and its reflection and influence in Sister Carrie and American two discusses specific reflection including material consumption, emotion consumption and body consumption and their respective features in Sister Carrie. Both of the two chapters aim to reveal the final tragedy to Carrie, that is, she ultimately bees a victim of consumption. 3 I. A Brief Review of Consumer Culture in Sister Carrie A. Introduction to Consumer Culture Generally speaking, consumer culture is “a social arrangement in which the buying and selling of goods and services is not only a predominant activity of everyday life but also an important arbiter of social anization,significance and meaning.” 3 Until now, consumer culture has been applied to a variety of fields, including cultural studies, theology, sociology, psychology, marketing, anthropology, philosophy, etc. As a result, not only scholars in different fields but also those who are specialized in the same field tend to define consumer culture in different ways. Thus consumer culture theory has bee a area to be studied from various perspectives which concentrate on the general idea that consumption has an essentially cultural structure in all human societies, and it is central to the cultural as well as the material reproduction of social lives and relationships. The earliest research in consumer culture can be traced back to Q Simmel and Thorstein Veblen(18571929)， the American social critics and economists who put forward the famous concept of “conspicuous consumption39。Company. When first published, it sold poorly and was not widely promoted largely because of moral objections to the depiction of a country girl who pursues her dreams of fame and fortune through relationships to men without suffering any consequences and it was criticized as an??immoral book39。 body consumption。 material consumption。 a brief review of the research achievements on Sister Carrie and on consumer culture at home and abroad. And then ,it further illustrates the reason and significance for choosing this topic . The body of the thesis includes two chapters. Chapter One introduces consumer culture, followed by a review of the emergence of modern consumer culture in America as well as its reflections in Sister Carrie. What?s more, how is consumption desire stimulated by the needs of society at that time and the tragic resultdisillusionment brought by consumption. Chapter Two discusses the The Features of Material Consumption, Emotion Consumption and Body Consumption in Sister Carrie. Influenced by consumer culture, women at that time are eager to be a consumer in their own ways,which breaks the traditional female identity as “mother and wife”as Carrie?s sister Minnie． It also focuses on the relationship between Carrie and Drouet and Carrie and Mr. Hurstwood?s , and the relationship between Mr. Hurstwood and his family as well as the relationship between Carrie and her sister?s family under the context of consumer culture which further explains the indifference and cruelty of consumer culture to all kinds of relationships, while the same time explains women?s dilemma during their pursuit of selfdevelopment in a iv maledominated consumer society—they want to be consumers with relatively high social status whereas they are consumed by men at the same Conclusion part summarizes the main idea. Consumer culture and consumption ideology are thoroughly showed in this novel. However, consumption in this novel is actually a kind of flamboyant consumption to prove one?s social status and identity, as well as prestige and honor brought by status. Carrie ultimately bees a victim of consumption. Her life direction is mainly drawn by the strong desire of consumption。論文結(jié)尾部分對中心思想做了概述，消費(fèi)文化和消費(fèi)意識形態(tài)在這部作品里表現(xiàn)得淋漓盡致，但文中的消費(fèi)是一種炫耀式的消費(fèi)，歸根到底，是為了證明其社會地位和身份，以及這種地位所帶來的聲望 和榮譽(yù)。由此更好地解釋了消費(fèi)文化對各種關(guān)系而言是冷漠與殘酷的。受消費(fèi)文化影響的女性打破了如嘉莉的姐姐