Abstract:Sister Carrie, the masterpiece of Theodore Dreiser, tells a story about the disillusion of Carrie’s American dream. The thesis aims to analyze the reasons of the disillusion of Carrie’s American dream on the basis of close reading of the text. Innocent and idealized, young village girl Carrie is easy to be influenced by the environment around. On the one hand, differences between the poor life with her sister and comfortable life with Drouet and Hurstwood make Carrie become insatiable gradually, causing her dream developing into greed of material life. On the other hand, influenced by the prevalence of consumerism, products of the second industrial revolution and urbanization movement in the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Carrie gets lost in the metropolis. Although Carrie’s personal reasons have an effect on the disillusion of her American dream, the external factors are definitive. The paper concludes that the disillusion of Carrie’s dream is mainly due to the external factors--the capitalist society and consumerism of 20th century.

Key words: American dream；morality；capitalism; consumerism

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Dreiser’s Life Experience and His Sister Carrie

1.2 American Dream

2. Carrie’s American Dream .3

2.1 Dream of Good Life 

2.2 Dream of Love and Happiness 

2.3 Dream of Fame

3. Disillusion of Carrie’s Dream5

3.1 Internal Causes

3.2 External Cause

4. Conclusion.7

Bibliography8

Acknowledgements9