最后作出结论：在一个人人把消费视为炫耀而并非需要的时代，美国普通人民的美国梦是难以实现的。《嘉莉妹妹》给当代读者警示和启示：在现代社会，我们不应该盲目追求物质财富，更应该重视精神世界的满足。

毕业论文关键词：美国梦，嘉莉妹妹，需要层次理论，幻灭，消费文化

Contents 

Chapter I Introduction 1

1。1 Previous Studies on Sister Carrie at Home and Abroad 1

1。2 Aims and Significance of the Thesis 2

Chapter II Carrie’s American dream 4

2。1 The Formation of Carrie’s Dream 4

2。2 The Development of Carrie’s Dream 5

2。3 The disillusionment of Carrie’s American Dream 6

Chapter III Consumer Culture 7

3。1 The Concept of Consumer Culture 7

3。2 The Reflection of Consumer Culture in Sister Carrie 7

3。2。1 Carrie’s longing for beautiful clothing 7

3。2。2 Carrie’s longing for luxurious residence 8

Chapter IV The Causes of Carrie’s disillusioned American Dream 10

4。1 The external causes 10

4。1。1  Consumer Culture 10

4。1。2 Life experience 11

4。2 The internal causes 11

4。2。2 Carrie’s accepting the reality 12

Chapter V Conclusion 13

References 14

Chapter I Introduction

Sister Carrie was one of Theodore Dreiser’s most famous novel。 It is popular not only for its vivid story and characters , but also for its significance for the whole society。 In this chapter, the author mainly presents the previous studies on Sister Carrie at home and abroad and the significance of this thesis。

1。1 Previous Studies on Sister Carrie at Home and Abroad

    Sister Carrie, Dreiser’s first novel, was published in 1900 and is one of the first influential American novels in the 20th century。 As a conventional novel, Sister Carrie has been discussed by a number of scholars ever since it’s been published。论文网

    During the 1910s and 1920s, the early reviewers commented on the novel from the moral aspect of heroine。 There were two groups of writers with opposite views towards each other。 One group, led by Stuart Sherman, who wrote The Barbaric Naturalism of Theodore Dreiser to express his point of view that the novel was immoral。Sherman thought Dreiser put too much emphasis on man’s animal nature and had got rid of distinctively human values。 And in his viewpoint, literature works should stress man’s capacity for rational moral choice as so many reviewers at that time described the novel as “unhealthful”。 However, the other group, led by H。L。 Mencken, spoke highly of Dreiser’s novel and praised Dreiser for his courage to ignore the remains of Puritan moralism in America。 Sinclair Lewis, the first American author who won the Nobel Prize claimed that Sister Carrie “came to housebound and airless American like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman” in his Nobel Speech in 1930(Cassuto 2004)。 In a word, they appreciated the novel a lot and thought that the novel opened a new path for the young writers。