1. Introduction

1.1 Theodore Dreiser and An American Tragedy

Theodore Dreiser, was born in 1871 and died in 1945, one of the realistic writers of American modern fiction. He is still a naturalist. His works are close to the lives of American people. He was also considered as a pioneer in American literature mainly because his works paved the way for the free expression of novelists and ”liberated American novels.” Commentator Alfred Kasin once said: ”The reason we have equated his work with reality is that for half a century he was not only a writer but also a complete chapter of American life.” As a representative writer of American realism, Dreiser#8217;s profound influence on American literature mainly lies in his breaking with tradition of American literature and opening up creation of American literary realism . His works have distinctive artistic features and are full of long sentences and focus on details, which is fully demonstrated in An American Tragedy.

An American Tragedy is the most important work of Theodore Dreiser. This novel is divided into three volumes. The story takes the short life of an ordinary American youth, Clyde Griffith, as a clue, interweaving numerous images of American social life.The protagonist Clyde lives in a family of poor priests, but his family has not been blessed by faith. An American Tragedy introduced the protagonist's depression, struggle, degeneration and destruction and other behavioral characteristics. Dreiser lived in the United States from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, where tremendous changes had taken place. At this time, the United States achieved remarkable achievements in the world and people#8217;s living standards improved. As a result, America has entered the consumer society. With the transition from monopolism to capitalism, consumer ideology has gradually replaced production ideology. Consumerism, at this time, guided and regulated people's actions in consumption, thoughts, aspirations, emotions and corresponding practices. It advocates luxury consumption, the desire for material enjoyment and recreation, which are regarded as the purpose and value of life. At this point, people spent money for entertainment and enjoyment, even they did not really need, and the consumption and possession of material virtually weakened the diligence, thrifty, saving, self-control and other traditional ethical standards.

An American Tragedy was based on such a social background and it was adapted from a real murder case in 1906 in which Chester Gillette has murdered his girlfriend. Although the media gave a detailed account of the incident, the author still believes that the underlying reasons behind the murder have not been uncovered. Dreiser himself, as a writer living under the background of such an era, wrote what he saw, heard and thought in his work An American Tragedy. Therefore, An American Tragedy also serves as a cry for the author to criticize social reality.

1.2 Need for study

An American Tragedy has received widespread attention since it was published. An American Tragedy reveals the tragic nature of life through the ruthless exposure and criticism of the phenomenon of American society and the nature of evil, and strongly stirs the heartbeat of readers, triggering people's deep concern for social reality. Many scholars have made in-depth research on the death of main character Clyde from different points of view, such as naturalism, psycho, conflicts between Puritanism and Hedonism, etc. However, few scholars discussed the influence of consumerism on the hero#8217;s humanity, which should be attached much more importance. This thesis intend to analyze the tragic ending of Clyde from the perspective of consumerism in order to look for the root of Clyde#8217;s tragic life and explore the influence of consumerism consciousness on tragic humanity, which has realistic significance for people who live in the consumer society now.

2. Literature review

2.1 Thorstein Veblen#8217;s Views on Conspicuous Consumption in Consumer Society

The term ” conspicuous consumption” was first put forward by Thorstein Veblen(1857-1929), an American social critic and economist, in the book The Theory of the Leisure Class. ”Conspicuous consumption” is consumption undertaken to make a statement to others about one#8217;s class or accomplishments.

In his another famous book Conspicuous Consumption (1902), Thorstein Veblen points out that as wealth accumulates, the leisure class developed further in function and structure, and there arose a differentiation within the class. According to Thorstein Veblen, social status was decided by one#8217;s birth, history and family name at earlier stages, and expenditure ranked second for maintaining social status. Later, spending patterns started reflecting one#8217;s social class and people#8217;s hierarchical structure could be easily distinguished from their tastes, clothing and living room. Therefore, to wear right clothes and have living room decorated with exquisite household products was necessary for achieving social respect. Especially in America, where birth, history and family name are less prominent, consumption becomes the most prominent standard for demonstrating social status and personal identity.

2.2 Previous studies on An American Tragedy Abroad

Since published in 1925, An American Tragedy triggered heated debates on all sides. Among those who made critical comments on this work, J. Donald Adams and Edmund Wilson were of the most importance. Wilson attacked Dreiser#8217;s writing technique. He argued that the novel was ”the worse-written great novel in the world”. ”Dreiser deserves our respect; but the truth is he writes so badly that it is almost impossible to read him”. Adams focused on the theme of the novel. He considered it as the representative of all that went wrong with naturalism. He pointed out, in the Shape of Books to Come (1944), that men ”have tended to keep their characters on the animal plane,” ”Dreiser#8217;s thinking was never more confused and never more sentimental than it was in the writing of An American Tragedy”(102).Arnold Bennett gave critical evaluation of this novel ”it is written abominably, by a man who evidently despises style, elegance, clarity, even grammar. Dreiser simply does not know how to write, never did know, never wanted to know”. Even his supporter, H.L.Menchen, had trashed An American Tragedy as ”a vast, sloppy, chaotic thing of 385,000 words#8212;at least 250,000 of them unnecessary.” (”In Dreiser#8217;s Footsteps”) . However, vast majority of scholars gave high praise for An American Tragedy. Meanwhile, they studied this novel from various aspects. Some scholars have done research on this work in light of literary theories such as psycho analysis, feminism and deconstruction. Shawn St. Jean pointed In the article ”Social Deconstruction and An American Tragedy”(1986) that after reading closely, deconstruction could help to demonstrate the ambiguity of Clyde#8217;s responsibility for the death of Roberta.

2.3 Previous studies on An American Tragedy at Home

Many scholars in China also made research on An American Tragedy from different perspectives such as consumerism, naturalism, determinism and writing skills in An American Tragedy. Xu Ruzhi, the translator of the novel, wrote an article about the features of Dreiser#8217;s artistic plot creation of the novel in 1982 and indicated that Dreiser demonstrated his obscure socialist views in this novel. In 1990s, Zhang Wei did some research on the relationship between Clyde#8217;s tragic fate and American social tragedy to expose the true nature of capitalist society in ”On the Features of Realism of American Tragedy”(1997). Zheng Li, from Lanzhou University touched on determinist factors when analyzing the artistic techniques in the novel in her master thesis ”An Analysis of the Theme and Artistic Techniques in An American Tragedy”(2005), but failed to offer a detailed and systematic analysis of how hereditary and environmental factors exert great influence on the fate of Clyde. Run Guie analyzed the embodiment of consumerism in An American Tragedy, in the article of Analysis of Consumerism in An American Tragedy(2007). Zhou Hong claimed in the article of The Influence of consumerism on the tragic humanity by analyzing An American Tragedy(2011), that Clyde#8217;s tragic experience of life just came from blind pursuit of certain life styles under the influence of consumerism consciousness. It stems from the over-desire of unreal life dreams, but also because of his own self-consciousness of consumerism and the lack of a correct understanding of society. It can be said that he is a victim of his own character tragedy, a victim of the tragedy of the times, and a victim of the tragedy of consumerism. He pointed out that Consumerism exerted a great impact on Clyde#8217;s tragic life. He analyzed how the family environment change the personality of Clyde on the whole, but he did not elaborate in detail, which was hard to convince the readers.An Analysis of Clyde#8217;s personal tragedy from An American Tragedy, which was written by Wu Yan, maintained that Clyde's own personality traits, ideas and distorted outlook on life, is the key to the consequences of his tragedy.

2.4 Deficiency in previous studies

Ranging from writing skills to analysis of the main character#8217;s tragedy, those previous studies on An American Tragedy mentioned above have done research on this book from various perspective, which provided a great deal of new ideas for further studies. As we all know, the protagonist, Clyde, was not an evil at the beginning even if he grew up in a poor family. How did he become a person who schemed to murder his pregnant lover step by step under a consumer society? How did people#8217;s consumerism consciousness influence Clyde#8217;s every decision? However, few scholars were interested in how the consumerism affect the main character, Clyde, step by step.

This thesis is to analyze the embodiment of consumerism in the 1920s based on Thorstein Veblen#8217;s views on conspicuous consumption in consumer society and to analyse how consumerism influence Clyde#8217;s every decision and the causes of Clyde#8217;s eventual degeneration by exploring his every important life stages. In addition, the deep implication that why the death of the main character is a tragedy, even a social tragedy, will be illustrated in this article.

Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Theodore Dreiser and An American Tragedy

1.2 Need for the Study

2 Literature Review

2.1 Thorstein Veblen#8217;s Views on Conspicuous Consumption

2.2 Previous Studies on the novel Abroad

2.3 Previous Studies on the novel at Home

2.4 Deficiency in Previous Studies

3 Consumerism

3.1 Consumerism and Consumer Society

3.1.1 Hedonism: Prevalence in Consumer Society

3.1.2 Symbol of Identity

3.2Thorstein Veblen#8217;s Views on Conspicuous Consumption

4 The Tragedy of American Society

4.1 Clyde: A Victim of Consumerism

4.1.1 Deficiency of Consumptive Ability

4.1.2 Infinite Dilation of Possessive Desire

4.1.3 The Failed Attempts to Overstep the Boundaries

4.2 Reflection of Clyde#8217;s Tragedy

5 Conclusion

Works Cited

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Dreiser, Theodore. A Book about Myself: Dawn. London: Constable, 1929.

Enfield, Jon. ”A True Picture of Facts: Cinematic Realism in An American Tragedy.” Arizona Quarterly 3(2010):45-69.

Fox, Richard Wightman. The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History 1880-1980, New York: Pantheon, 1983.

Hakutani, Y. Theodore Dreiser and American Culture:New Readings. New York: Associated University Presses Inc. 2000.

Kepos, Paula Eda. Twentieth-century Literary Criticism. New York: Gale Research Inc, 1988.

Ma Lina.[马丽娜]，Zhang minghui.[张明会]，价值的迷失与传统的遗弃#8212;#8212;评德莱塞《美国的悲剧》.教育理论与实践，2016(8):2.

Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality, New York: Harperamp;Row., 1954.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institution. New York: Macmillan, 1902.

Wu Guojian and Yu Xiaoping. ”An Analysis on The Causes of Clyde Griffiths#8217; Tragedy in An American Tragedy.” Overseas English 10(2010):215-217.

Wu Yuanqing. ”Ethical Alienation: Ethical Interpretation of Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy.” Journal of Yangtze University (Social Sciences Edition). 8(2015):40-43

Wu Yan.[伍雁]，德莱塞《美国的悲剧》中克莱德的人生悲剧. 作家，2014(24):82-83.

Wang Yifei.[王一飞]，论《美国的悲剧》的欲望主题. 浙江大学硕士论文，2011.

Zhang Wei.[张微]，Cheng Zhihui[程志汇]，《美国的悲剧》悲剧根源评析. 芒种，2012(20):152-153.

Zheng jiayan. On Clyde#8217;s Love Experience in An American Tragedy. Journal of Shaoguan University(Social Science Edition).33(2012):50-53.