The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of consumer culture, under which context humanism and Puritan ethics embraced by tradition have been replaced by naturalism and hedonism. Dominating the American society, the ideology of naturalism is based on "the survival of the fittest" put forward by Darwin, while hedonism greatly emphasizes sensational relish and desire for current pleasure. Sister Carrie, a vivid portrayal of the early twentieth America, reveals profound influence of consumer culture over Theodore Dreiser and his naturalistic preference in both his objective narrative techniques and ideological proposition. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser depicts the American dream of three social strata, i.e. the underclass, the upper-middle class and the class trapped between the above two. Classified into the respective parts of applicable objects, means to achieve the dream and its anticipated outcomes, the American dream went through a tripartite alienation procedure, thereby being alienated as a whole. This representative novel has thrown America into a waste land, a nihilistic world where everywhere permeates shattered dreams, demonized evaluation system and lost souls.
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