从消费主义解析《美国悲剧》中克莱德的悲剧命运

论文总字数：29851字

摘 要

德莱塞的著作《美国悲剧》完美体现了其对当时美国社会所崇尚的荒谬价值观的抨击。本文通过结合消费主义中符号化有形商品的观念，分析小说中豪华消费品的象征意义、畸形消费观念对社会底层的主人公克莱德造成的心理冲突和主人公作出种种抉择的必然性。本文还研究了消费主义导致的阶级矛盾和消费主义对主人公悲剧命运的推动。从消费主义角度研究《美国悲剧》可以对如今消费需求不断提高的中国社会起到警示作用。

关键词：消费主义；德莱塞；克莱德；炫耀式消费

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………4
3. The Embodiment of Consumerism in An American Tragedy…………...6

3.1 Wearing：coding of social class …………………………………………….6

3.2 Private car : symbol of status…………………………………………........7

3.3 Residence:mark of self-identify …………………………………………...8

1. The Influence of Consumerism on the Main Character ……………….8

4.1 Morbid thirst for material and money……………………………………8

4.2 The distortion of the view of marriage and love…………………………...9

4.3 The decline of moral ideas……………………………………………….10

5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..11

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...13

1. Introduction

As one of Dreiser"s most famous novels, An American tragedy perfectly embodies Dreiser"s criticism of the impetuous and hypocritical values of American society at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the novel, Clyde Griffith, the protagonist, is gradually transformed, degenerated into a murderer and finally self-destructed by the evil influence of society. In the consumerist-dominated American society, the measure of success has become the amount of material possession. Under the influence of this dominant outlook on life, traditional moral concepts are gradually abandoned and replaced by the desire for material goods.

The novel is divided into three volumes, one of which describes how Clyde, an innocent and naive young man, was corroded and poisoned by the outside world, and gradually evolved into a cynical and evil man, until the car ran over the girl and fled Kansas City. Volume II describes Clyde"s encounter with rich businessman uncle Samuel Griffith, who came to the factory as a foreman assistant with poor relatives, and then fell in love with poor worker Roberta and Miss Sandra in a triangle. In order to climb up to Sandra, Clyde was willing to sacrifice Roberta at the expense of the basic moral principles freely accepted. So he killed the young worker who had been seduced and pregnant by him through a boat capsizing conspiracy. Later, Clyde fled with impunity. Volume 3, mainly describes how Clay was arrested, tried and convicted after the crime.

There is also a scandal of Political Speculation in the Clyde case between the two parties and the judiciary in the United States. After a final verdict, Clyde was sent to the electric chair. The story is absurd, but it is the best portrayal of the dark “golden age”. Studying An American Tragedy can not only deeply analyze Clyde"s growth experience and character, but also find the root of tragic life and explore the influence of consumerism consciousness on tragic human nature on the basis of analyzing the social characteristics of his times.

Consumerism is ubiquitous in the American tragedy book, and this idea has a vital impact on the growth trajectory of the protagonist. The work shows the growing trend of differentiation of American social groups in the blindly pursuit of consumerism in the twentieth century. The difference in consumption ability and consumption mode constructs a hidden high wall between social strata, and at the same time leads to a large number of individual tragedies. This paper will analyse the symbolic meaning of luxury goods in the original novel and the changes of the main character Clyde caused by abnormal consumption concept to show the harm of excessive pursuit of consumerism.

1. Literature Review

As the most famous realist writer in the early twentieth century, Dreiser had a thorough insight into the American society at that time. He exposed the dark side of American society through American Tragedy. Many of his works imply a satire on consumerism. Consumerism mainly refers to a kind of cultural attitudes and values or lifestyle consumerism, which takes the United States as its representative and is prevalent in the developed capitalist countries in the West and also appears in the non-developed countries, for the purpose of pursuing conspicuous luxury and novelty of consumption and the ultimate value of life. Consumerism is a consumption trend that puts personal material self-satisfaction and happiness first. This trend of thought urges people to constantly pursue new consumer goods in order to satisfy their spiritual happiness. Jean Baudrillard, author of Consumer Society believes that consumers do not need the function of specific things or the value of individual use, they actually need the symbolic meaning given by commodities（Baudrillard 11）.In other words, consumption is no longer an end, it deviates from needs and the use value of commodities, and becomes a means to satisfy desires. As a result, the symbolic value of consumer goods surpasses the use value and becomes the symbol of success, identity and social status, as well as the confirmation of consumers" self-worth. Consumerism not only transforms consumer behavior into cultural behavior, but also casts itself into the mainstream culture with ideological function, making the symbolic value of things become the ethical and value standards of consumer society. Up to now, the sharp ideas embodied in Dreiser’s works have attracted much attention and aroused many discussions. The most influential is the analysis of consumerism in his works.

In 1978, Michael Spindler studied American tragedy from three aspects: youth, consumerism and class. He believes that in capitalist society, young people with immature values are vulnerable to social interaction and consumption concepts (Spindler 9). Helen Ouliaei Nia and Fatemeh Torki Baghbaderani studied Sister Carrie by Dreiser, a novel which is basically consistent with the theme of An American tragedy. Both of them describe a series of stories that happened after young people"s values were impacted in the context of the rapid economic development of the United States in the early twentieth century. They thought that in the face of the high-class life which they have been in contact with for a long time, the people at the bottom will have the mentality of contempt, shame and disgust for the miserable and impoverished life they once suffered, and turn to yearn for the life of the upper-class society which advocates consumerism. However, the excessively inflated desire is limited by ability and origin, and can not be satisfied. Some people with unstable beliefs will go astray. This fierce ideological struggle is also reflected in Clyde, the protagonist of An American tragedy.

There are also many discussions about An American tragedy in China. Run Guie and Zhao Lihong studied An American tragedy from the perspective of consumerism and explored the irresistible effect of consumerism on people. They believed that people will be influenced by all kinds of force majeure under the prevailing environment of consumerism, resulting in the integration of self-values and seemingly normal mainstream ideas. They proposed that under the stimulation of conspicuous consumption, human weaknesses such as selfishness, vanity, individualism, possessiveness and greed are exposed. Consumerism is also regarded as an important yardstick for defining social class and identity, so that groups infected with consumerism virus may try to obtain social labels of the target circle by consuming, possessing some exquisite goods or services. In the final analysis, conspicuous consumption is a kind of demand, a new religion that worships the value of commodity symbols, while the devout prayers of the followers are nothing but vanity.

Jiang Daochao not only studied the manifestation of consumerism in An American tragedy, but also put forward the idea that consumption practice means social class in the novel. He pointed out that Dreiser"s "An American Tragedy" showed the prodigious consumption in the 1920s in the United States, which had an impact on the protagonists and other Americans. What Dreiser ultimately wanted to express was the symbolic meaning of contemporary thinker Roland Bart"s things and the consumption of symbolic value Baudrillard talked about. He also argued that Clyde is only influenced by American consumption and enjoyment of culture and ideas, and that other Americans, including lawyers, prosecutors and jurors in the novel, are not immune to such influences. In this sense, Clyde is innocent, the most responsible for this should be the American social system, as well as the pursuit of great material possession and material enjoyment of the ideology.

The predecessors have made various studies on An American tragedy from the perspective of consumerism of symbolized tangible goods. This paper will study the impact of consumerism on the protagonist Clyde and the psychological changes of him when his values are facing great impact . By studying the influence of abnormal consumption concept on the hero"s values, marriage, morality and beliefs, we can critically reflect on the consumerist ideology. This is not only helpful to deepen our understanding of the original book itself, but also has an important warning effect on the psychological and value development of today"s teenagers and even adults.

1. The Embodiment of Consumerism in An American Tragedy

Consumerism is almost ubiquitous in American tragedies. The irrational worship of conspicuous consumption and symbolic value of commodities reveals the extreme destructive effect of consumerism. In American Tragedy, Dreiser changed his contradictory mentality towards consumerism in his previous works. Through Clyde"s pursuit of clothes, private cars and luxury houses, Dreiser criticized clearly that conspicuous consumption aimed at identity appeal is the essence of morbid psychological needs in modern consumer society. Stimulated by conspicuous consumption, human weaknesses such as selfishness, vanity, individualism, possessiveness and greed are exposed. Consumerism is also regarded as an important yardstick to define social class and identity, so that groups infected with the consumerism virus may try to obtain the social label of the target circle through consumption, possession of some exquisite goods or services themselves. In the final analysis, conspicuous consumption is a kind of demand, a new religion that worships the value of commodity symbols, while the devout prayers of the followers are nothing but vanity.

3.1 Wearing：coding of social class

In the first several chapters of the novel, the protagonist Clyde sharply reveals the young people"s anxiety about their identity and their desire to integrate into the mainstream of society under the impact of consumer culture. Clothing was the source of Clyde"s distress until he was unable to earn enough money to meet that need. He was constantly looking forward to having better shirts, brighter shoes, high-quality suits and handsome coats. Clyde"s thinking reflects the values he derives from society, that is, man can essentially be equated with his shell, so that the whole meaning of man can be judged from his appearance.And Holstein, a girl Clyde once had a crush on, whose desire for fur coats made Clyde more aware of the role of clothing in identifying people. Clothing is identity. Clyde"s desire for decent clothing is also his demand for the symbolic value they represent.

In Clyde"s social environment, proper attire means stepping into the social threshold, gaining identity tags, and being an important source of sexual awareness for the opposite sex.Clothes are visible hierarchical symbols, and people who dress appropriately can get social passes. Costume is not only considered as an individual"s identity symbol, but also a symbol of family status. Clyde"s uncle saw his nephew in a sleeveless blouse and sweating among the other workers, at a time when Clyde was far from the neat, elegant and graceful image he had previously had. Therefore, the uncle immediately decided to give his nephew a promotion, not because of his own achievements, but because of the family"s local reputation: Clyde must be placed in a position that can be dressed decently, must look like a character. Clyde"s pseudo-upper status was thus packaged. Clothing is the banner that shows all social strata or low or high social status. The change of Clyde"s clothes shows the whole course of his pursuit of social status.

It was because Clyde was well-dressed and well-behaved that Sandra and other upper-class people mistook him for Gilbert and accepted him as a member of his class. Sandra threw Cupid"s arrow at him and decided to marry him. This shows that clothing plays an important role in distinguishing people"s rank and status.

3.2 Private car : symbol of status

In the 1920s, the newly-emerged affluent class in the industrial society of the United States endowed this means of transportation with high social value because of their zealous pursuit of cars. Private cars represent identity, comfort and prestige. It"s not so much the glittering private car itself that fascinates Clyde as the invisible identity indicator function it carries. Under the influence of such social values, Clyde could not help thinking about cars parked outside the hotel; his colleagues who worked in the hotel also boasted that their friends could borrow cars; his friends who boasted that they were driving for a rich man were even more remarkable.

Clyde was eager to express himself in order to win the favor of his favorite girl, and Clyde"s favorite girl knew it well. The girl who grew up under the influence of consumerism had invented a story about a boy with a car who was pursuing her own in order to entice Clyde to buy her favorite coat. The car is enough weight for her to choose a marriage partner. The surprise of the snowy car drove away the anxiety of car theft. Unfortunately, the accident of Clyde"s delightful car smashed his dream and ended the first stage of his life. Such plot arrangement foreshadows the tragic ending Clyde pursued.

Luxury private cars reflect the artificial additional identity halo of consumerism, which makes Clyde"s generation lost its pursuit direction. Abnormal consumption concept is infecting more and more social groups like a virus, which makes them embark on an endless path of irrational consumption.

3.3 Residence: mark of self-identify

An American Tragedy attracts much attention for its realistic description. The author uses a lot of space to depict the hero Clyde"s reaction to luxury hotels and other magnificent mansions, fully demonstrating the irresistible temptation of luxury houses as identity codes. The geographic location of the residence also clarifies the value of the residence to a certain extent, especially the belonging of the social stratum. Since "all the slightly more prominent families moved to the lakeside villa", Clyde"s two cousins began urging their parents to move to the new social center, and their ever-conceited cousins agreed. The controversy of symbolic value which can lead to social stratification has been launched. How to consume and where to consume has become a new standard to define interpersonal relationship. Such residential zoning marks the distance between the social strata and the centre represented by the social elite.

1. The Influence of Consumerism on the Main Character

Clyde, the protagonist of American Tragedy, is not a hero at all, just like Dreiser"s description of "strong desire but poor qualifications". He has no firm beliefs, or, in addition to his later yearning for money and social status, he never behaves like a determined person. He has opposed his parents" religious fanaticism since childhood. When he became a waiter, he was dazzled by the richness and luxury of the hotel. In his mind, which is more sensitive than most people and easily influenced by the outside world, it seems that the meaning of life is achieved by pursuing money and beauty. The lack of systematic education, the influence of social atmosphere and the low self-control all lead him to be very vulnerable to external influence. Among them, the most influential is the American social environment in which consumerism prevails.

4.1 Morbid thirst for material and money

Born in a traditional religious family, Clyde never experienced material enjoyment. His parents were very traditional, but without foresight, Clyde had no systematic education. In the American society where consumerism prevailed, young people like him who lacked judgment and self-control were vulnerable to the temptation of material and money. Clyde"s lack of correct understanding of himself, inferiority and conceit made him worship money and material more blindly after working in luxury hotels. Facing many kinds of temptations and seeing the luxurious life of rich people, Clyde was inevitably driven by consumerism. His desire for money became stronger and stronger. At the same time, he became more and more superstitious of material power, believing that material could bring him status, respect and heterosexual love. Clyde has an outstanding personality. He loves vanity. This mentality leads to his unwillingness to accept any humble work. It is also his mentality of not only lacking necessary knowledge and skills, but also thinking of making a lot of money that leads to his tragic character of “strong desire but poor qualifications”. His humble origin made him unwilling to face up to himself, lacking judgment and willpower. He just dreamed of being divorced from reality and gradually lost himself. Clyde lacked a correct understanding of himself. When life circumstances required him to make decisions, he gave up the right to make decisions to instinct, or the strong desire to rise to the top in his heart.

4.2 The distortion of the view of marriage and love

At the beginning of the novel, Clyde"s sister, Esta, eloped with a handsome but morally corrupt man who had promised to marry her, dress her in gorgeous clothes and house her in luxury . Clyde was furious when he learned that Esta had been abandoned. Although he was a little tired of his sister who might be a drag on him, at least for the moment he was spiteful of some people’s playing with love.

However, when he worked as an assistant at the grocery store and later as a waiter at the Green Davidson Hotel, he became wealthy and believed that he had a relatively wealthy new identity. He began to live farther and farther away from his original missionary life and his beliefs in traditional values. With money, he changed his identity and lifestyle from inside to outside. He was fascinated by dancing and parties, and began to cheat his mother and indulge in women. At this time, Clyde has fallen into an ethical crisis, his inner selfish desire dominated, love for him is a companion product of improved status.

Later Clyde entered his uncle Samuel Griffith"s collar factory. He met Roberta, a kind and pure girl. After falling in love with her, he fell in love with Sandra, a rich and beautiful woman. When Sandra appeared, he felt that Roberta had lost her value, just an outdated consumer product. Because Roberta couldn"t bring him into the upper class, she was just a “consumer goods” she played with. At that time, there were many young people in American society, especially those from humble backgrounds and poor families, who all dreamed of becoming a millionaire in society, or suddenly made a fortune overnight. What"s more, some people have delusions that they will be able to climb to the top one day, because in their eyes, marriage is the pedal for them to change their class status and enter the upper class. Clyde boasted a handsome face, and by virtue of his good-spoken, lying personality, soon won the favor of the wealthy woman Sandra.

He turned from one woman to another in order to satisfy his physical desire and seek his value and status in the consumer society. At this time, Clyde chose to abandon the unfortunate Roberta and take Sandra"s fast train of wealth to realize his dream of upper class society in order to achieve his identity, to get into the upper class society and to dream of wealth. Ironically, he became the man he once hated - the man who abandoned his sister. This is Clyde"s ethical choice and his real inner desire. He wants wealth, status and money. For these things, he violates the traditional concept of marriage and regards marriage as a ladder across classes and a shortcut to change destiny.

4.3 The decline of moral ideas

In the early stage of the story, Clyde is only a young man who loves vanity and money, but does not show moral decay. However, for fear of losing their existing social status and money, Clyde and his friends chose to run away .This is an important turning point in Clyde"s outlook on life and morality, and a sign of the end of his first stage of life.

After Roberta became pregnant, Clyde refused to accompany Roberta to see a doctor in order to preserve his identity and status, leaving all the most tragic results to Roberta. At the same time, he was busy attending parties one after another, dating and talking with Sandra, consolidating his existing social status and reputation. Even in the end, in order to get rid of Roberta and pursue fame and fortune without hesitation, Clyde pretended to return and tricked her into going boating, pushing Roberta into the water in the middle of the lake, drowning his former lover, the pregnant woman. Clyde abandoned the bottom line of traditional morality and tried to get rid of his ex-girlfriend by murder. His action is essentially an attempt to sever his ties with his humble past status, thus clearing the way for him to enter a new social stratum. If the previous escaping was a non-subjective evil, then drowning Roberta was a deliberate and heinous evil.

At the moment of his arrest, he was still stubbornly convinced that he might not have any legal responsibility and might return to the current social circle one day. So at the last moment, he begged the police officers to take him by the way and keep the matter secret to his upper-class friends. Clyde showed his cowardice after being arrested. A young man in his twenties dared not face the reality, face corrections, and attempt to recover from the crime. Clyde behaved much worse than his uncultured but courageous mother. Clyde was not really redeemed. He abandoned the most important qualities and beliefs of traditional values.

1. Conclusion

On the surface, the author Dreiser seems to be writing a murder case, the short life of a small and insignificant person, but in the depth of the whole case, the author explores the deep meaning behind the tragic fate of the characters. The hero"s actions were incompatible with the orthodox traditional morality at that time, and eventually faced with a tragic fate of life and was sent to the electric chair of death. Deep exploration reveals that his tragic life experience is precisely due to his blind pursuit of certain Lifestyles under the influence of consumerism consciousness, his excessive desire for the fantastic dream of life if nothing exists, and his lack of correct understanding of himself and the society dominated by consumerism consciousness. It can be said that he is the victim of his own tragedy of character, is timely. The victim of generation tragedy is also the victim of consumerist social tragedy. Dreiser appeals to people to re-examine themselves and their society with the help of the true appeal of the novel. He also appeals to people to re-examine their society and not to be confused by the mirages around them. This is the core value of An American Tragedy. On the surface, the work depicts Clyde"s tragedy of life. In fact, it reveals the tragic influence of consumerism on human nature through the tragic fate of the characters, criticizes the decadent era and denounces the decadent consumerist society, thus reaching the warning significance of awakening people to see themselves clearly, to see the surrounding environment and society, and to establish correct values of life.

The pursuit of desire will inevitably deprive people of their freedom and destroy the harmony between man and man, man and society, man and nature. When modern consumption breaks open the gate of desire and transforms people"s limited physiological needs into unlimited psychological desires, it will inevitably eliminate the fragile boundaries between people"s physiology and psychology, nature and instinct, reality and imagination, and even between reason and passion. The rapid expansion of human desire not only causes tragedy to individuals and society, but also brings damage to nature. On the one hand, excessive possession and consumption of some people means that other people have less wealth and less consumption. Material madness leads to misconduct and crime. On the other hand, human beings are madly squeezing nature to satisfy their greedy desires. Luxury and extravagant consumption patterns have plunged human beings into a serious survival dilemma and even triggered a global ecological crisis. In this sense, American Tragedy is not only Clyde"s tragedy, but also the tragedy of a country, a nation and even the whole human race. Therefore, in order to get out of the predicament and crisis, human beings must critically reflect on consumerism ideology and avoid the instrumentalization and alienation of consumption. In a sense, the formation of a new and healthy consumption concept is not only a contradiction to be solved by capitalism, but also a problem that any consumer society must face today.

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