The Emergence of New Consumer Culture and Its Effect During the Turn-of-the-Century Essay Example for Free

The Emergence of New Consumer Culture and Its Effect During the Turn-of-the-Century EssayThe Emergence of New Consumer Culture and Its Effect during the Turn-Of-The-Century Period People live in the period from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century witnessed a huge industrial deviate in American gild. This change led to the opening up of huge factories, the development of electricity in the 1880s which augmented factories more than ever, the revolution in mass communication, the invention of telephone, the device of railroads, the incredible rise of population with the rushing of immigrants into this country (Cassuto and Eby, 2004, p. -3).More importantly, this turn-of-the-century period marked the emergence and the development of mass production and consumption, which was considered as a untested kind of culture that bore fantasy to many deal, especially women of all diffe contract classes, at that time. Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), an American novelist, and Kathy Peiss, a hi account professor at University of Pennsylvania, argon twain interested in this aspect of change in the society. As a result, they both published works to depict the inner lives of Americans in solution to this change.Sister Carrie and Cheap Amusements are two best representations for their works. Interestingly, through reading those two novels, readers can easily tell that both Dreiser and Peiss pay more attendance to young working class women when examining the new consumer culture. Sister Carrie is a novel written by Theodore Dreiser and published in 1900. Through this novel, he told readers a story astir(predicate) a girl named Carrie Meeber who was born into a poor family and came to Chicago to make her American dreams come true.There, she stepped into a struggle in the society where peoples social statuses were recognized through the items they had on themselves. It can be said that consumerism developed and played an important k ey in each of the American spirit from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. It cannot be denied that mass consumerism is a good indicator of the development of the industry of the country however, consumerism indirectly makes the gap surrounded by the rich and the poor become much bigger. Production of goods definitely needs consumers. But not everybody can afford those goods.Consequently, just by looking at these goods, people could distinguish the poor from the rich and vice versa. In separate words, social classes at that time were categorized based on material things. Coming from a small rural town and a poor family, the young girl Carrie was totally fantasized by the mass consumerism world she was ledger entry in. There, she got the chance that she never had before to experience what the modern American culture looked like. Specifically, she got the chance to see what were called genuine products such as trustworthy shoes, real bags, and real clothes.Of course, she knew that these products were totally different from her outfit on her way to Chicago that consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse (Dreiser, 1982, p. 3). And just like any other young poor girls, Carrie could not hold the temptations coming from these genuine products. She felt jealous of higher class women who could afford enticing objects that she always dreamt of. Those kinds of feelings provoked her endless human desires.When Carrie first came to Chicago and looked for a job in a department store, she was mesmerized by the dainty slippers and stockings, the delicately frilled skirts and petticoats, the laces, ribbons, haircombs, purses (Dreiser, 1982, p. 23). And even when her life got better, her obsession with garb did not cease. Instead, it was build up Fine clothes to her were a vast persuasion they spoke tenderly and Jesuitically for themselves. Wh en she came within earshot of their pleading, desire in her bent a voluntary ear.The vocalize of the so-called inanimate Who shall translate for us the language of the stones? My dear, said the lace collar she secured from the Partridges, I fit you beautifully dont give me up. Ah, such little feet, said the leather of the soft new shoes how effectively I cover them. What a pity they should ever loss my aid. (Dreiser, 1982, p. 106) In other words, it is the consumer culture that led Carrie to ambition for a luxurious life. The more the consumer culture developed, the more ambitious Carrie got. Indeed, Carrie left her sister, the only person she knew in Chicago to move in with Drout, a stranger she talked to in the street.The reason behind is that she got so tired of the life in which all the money she make was just merely enough to pay for the rent of her sisters house. She could not even afford a pair of shoes for herself. She was unsatisfied with the life that suppressed her f rom good clothes and decided to challenge her fate. But Carrie refused to work hard instead, she chose to use Drout as a tool for her to get things she wanted in life. Later, she was disappointed when she found out that Drout was not genuinely rich. She then got into an affair with Hurtswood, a married manager of a saloon in Chicago.She had high hopes that this qat could bring her a wealthy and stable life because Hurtswood did not look as fake as Drout. Unfortunately, one day Hurtswood collapsed. Carrie recognized that Hurtswood was not a reliable source of wealth for her anymore. She left him and continued her path of chasing after luxury by becoming an actress. So it can be concluded that Carrie manipulated both Drout and Hurtswood to climb up her life ladder. Here, Dreiser attacked on the materialism, the key character of this turn-of-the-century period.According to Dreiser, materialism destroyed what is called humanity at that time. Through the character Carrie, Dreiser indire ctly criticized the society in which the mass production and consumption took control for bringing down the values of morality and ethics. He said, not evil, yet longing for that which is better, more lots directs the steps of the erring. Not evil, but goodness often allures the feeling mind unused to reason (Dreiser, 1982, p. 256). The coldness of the consumer culture is also represented through other characters in Sister Carrie.The revolution in industry and technology put pressure on each of the individual so that they had no choice but lived coldly and heartlessly. In order to survive, the relationship between family members, friends, and strangers meant nothing. Carries sister and her husband took away almost all of the money Carrie earned to pay for the rent of their house. They did not even care about their younger sister when she left them and lived with a stranger. Meanwhile, to Hurtswood, his wife Julia was nothing more than a means of creating the illusion of a happy ma rriage, which in some ways consolidated his social status in front of other people.Another key feature of the consumer culture is that clothing was considered as an indispensable confidence booster. Carrie believed that material could bring her happiness. For an instance, Carrie assumed people living happily just by material things she saw She imagined that across these luxuriously carved entrance-ways, where the globed and crystalled lamps shone upon paneled doors set with stained and designed panes of glass, was neither care nor unsatisfied desire. She was perfectly certain that here was happiness. (Dreiser, 1982, p. 122)It can be inferred that in Carries eyes, people without good clothes were living miserable lives. This explains for the fact that Carrie did not show any reluctance when she left her sister to move in with Drout or when she got into the affair with Hurtswood. Impressed by their appearances, Carrie regarded them as her superiors. In the first chapters of the novel , Dreiser carefully portrayed Drout in the way through which readers can easily recognize the trespass it would leave upon Carrie His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time, but since become familiar as a fear suit.The low crotch of the vest revealed a stiff bosom of white and pink stripes (Dreiser, 1982, p. 4) Without this outfit, Drout would be nothing. Apparently, human values during that period were all about material things, especially clothing. In the consumer culture, clothing is the sign for not only for happiness but also beauty and success as well. Kathy Peiss, in her halt Cheap Amusements, illustrates different forms of leisure activities of young working class women in New York from the late nineteenth century to the proterozoic twentieth century.Even though clothing and department stores are not as focused in this book as in Sister Carrie, Peiss is somehow still able to picture her attitudes towards the rise of mass produced cloth ing. She shares Dreisers perspective in the sense that clothing characterizes identity, It was in leisure that women played with identity, trying on new images and roles, appropriating the cultural forms around them clothing, music, language to push at the boundaries of immigrant, working-class life (Peiss, p. 2). Just like Carrie, young working class women in Cheap Amusements believed that expensive clothes could actually change their fates, at least making them feel like they belonged to a higher class and washing off the dirt coming from their poverty. Peiss wrote, For newly arrived immigrants, ever-changing ones clothes was the first step in securing a new status in America (Peiss, p. 63). Again, Peiss emphasizes on the strong correlation between the appearance and social status in the consumer culture.In conclusion, both Dreiser and Peiss use their words to convey their disagreements about the American society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Consum er culture, besides speeding up the development of the society at that time, caused people a lot of sufferings from their unceasing voice of want which dominated their voice of conscience in most cases. As a result, morality and ethics became overshadowed by materialism.