Consumerism In George Saunders's 'The Semplica Girl Diaries'

For a story by an author to be signified as a classic literature piece, it requires a timeless feature which the main passage can echo throughout the ages. Particularly, a relation to society's behavior and values. The characters, created by Washington Irving, most especially Tom Walker, gives us an insight on how his life centered predominantly on wealth up to the point where he is consumed by temptation. Tom Walker’s engagement in a deal with the Devil portrays how money-driven society has become more prominent through the times of the 1700s and today's world.

In “The Semplica-Girl Diaries”, George Saunders makes an important statement about the role of materialism in the American Dream, and how this materialism may not be the key to happiness many believe it to be. Saunders tells of a middle class family that strives to meet the standards of their peers and find a happier life. The father, who acts as the narrator, believes that acquiring and spending money on material objects, specifically the Semplica Girls, will improve the family’s life by improving how the family’s financial situation appears to others. The father’s primary values are that wealth and social standing are crucial to attaining the good life, and he believes the purchase of the Semplica Girls will fulfill these values. However, it is clear from the family’s ultimate situation and the disapproval of the mother’s successful father, that the narrator’s beliefs are misguided and potentially damaging to the family.

The essay title "Why I Love Shoplifting" is designed to immediately shock the reader. The essay's full title "Why I Love Shoplifting From Big Corporations" hints at the author's larger social critique of American capitalism. The author complains that she lives as a wage slave, forced to work most of her life to pay for basic necessities while large companies make huge profits off of her labor. When she pays for something, she says she considers the exchange one of violence, rather than justice. Shoplifting 'levels' the playing field. The statement 'I love shoplifting' is an act of deliberate hyperbole to catch the reader's attention and hides a more serious message about the nature of modern capitalism, although the author's one-sided rhetorical style often causes the reader to raise objections to her thesis rather than nod in agreement.

The phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

Malcolm Gladwell’s piece, “The Science of Shopping”, causes his audience to fear retail anthropologists such as Paco Underhill. On the surface, Gladwell appears to write a short documentary of sorts about the manipulation of businesses and stores. Venturing deeper into the story provides the reader with vision of the importance businesses place on their layouts and strategies. Gladwell continues to assure his point that consumers are not mindlessly obeying what retailors want them to do. Store owners are required to accommodate to how their customers behave, and what their target market wants. Gladwell refers to significant moments with Underhill by directly quoting Paco. He also vividly describes different aspects of Paco’s practice.

In a scene from the film, Selena, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, a Mexican-American singer, is ignored by a white sales woman. The sales woman judges Selena on the color of her skin, determining her social status as one unimportant to her business, not realizing that Selena was actually a celebrity. Just as the sales woman predetermined a role for Selena rooted by race and ethnicity, Waretown High maintained class, gender, and race stereotypes in determining girl’s futures and outcomes. Julie Bettie’s Women Without Class discusses these stereotypes through expectations set for las chicas and the preps by the school, families, and themselves, the exclusion of hard-living students, those whose families were low income, and the ability for some girls to become upwardly mobile as an exception to the rules.

The American Dream has always been the unattainable idea of a perfect life, often causing disorder when it is not realized. In response to society’s unrealistically high standards, and the human desire to be accepted, people shape their existences to fit within the quixotic ideals of society. The ubiquity of this conformity is demonstrated by its omnipresence as a theme in American literature. The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, along with Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, demonstrate how these perspectives of social mores are centered on the prevalence of the unrealistic views of normality. The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and

Through the Cold War, America was transitioning in various ways such as the way messages were shared, consumerism, and the constant race against the Soviet Union. During the years 1959-1964, Rod Serling, a New York writer and playwright began using one of the newest inventions, the television, as a way to share his opinion about controversial topics. The rise of the television allowed Serling to access to a larger audience whom he could share his opinion in the form of science fictional episodes in the show The Twilight Zone. Although the show seems ominous and a horror related TV show, it allows us to understand the effects and feeling towards topics such as a possible nuclear war, consumerism, space exploration.

From the ideas shared in the novel, it is evident that the writer defines his ideal society in the form of an antithesis of existing society. The author takes the initiative of informing the American population - using the novel’s romantic medium - on matters concerning individualism, which is notable in an argument by Andrew Carnegie who claims

The main points of the book are divided up,and go month by month.Each month is a new topic.Judith is challenged against her own word of not buying anything for a new year.The book witnesses Levine’s journey from enthusiastic experiment in January to a still game but weary participant by the fall.As favorite luxuries run out and clothes become shabbier,many of her points are intentionally provacative.For instance,not buying makes her feel vulnerable and having to ask for help.”I know I’m not alone in my ambivalence about consuming”After a few months Levine does not have to ask for help anymore.She is used to not buying anything,but it is still hard.At the beginning of her year without shopping,she is in a panic.This is not necessarily a personal panic.”Still I am moved by a sense of personal responsibility,not to say personal panic ,about this big,bad problem and the rapidity with which its is getting worse”’At the end of the book ,her mood changed from “panic”’to prosperity.Panic,Surplus,Consumer Psychology,New and Improved,In/Voulnatary Simplicity,Scarity,Redistribution of Wealth,Structual Adjustments,Memories of Underdevelpment,Security Fraud,Brand America,The Ownership Society and Prosperity.are the fifteen chapters in “Not Buying It”.Within each chapter, we discover,the different difficult trade-offs and tensions in not consuming.By focusing primarily on the personal choices and consequences of not shopping,Levine may be telling us more about the mind-set of American

A typical day for a grocery store cashier consists of scanning items, bagging items, and dealing with snobby customers every once in a while. So it is no wonder that Sammy, the grocery store cashier, has a sudden mood change that exhibits his personality when his day deviates from the normal. In the first two paragraphs of the narrative “A&P” by John Updike, Updike uses word choice, tone of voice, and detail to show that the narrator, Sammy, has a lot of good/bad qualities, like straightforwardness, wittiness, perceptiveness, and eloquence. Depending on the situation in which these traits are revealed, Sammy can either be perceived as an innocent teenager or a chauvinist in the making.

to begin with, Saunders says, “ I can’t locate the pedestrian entrance…Anybody who belongs in there will drive in and valet park.” (590) Saunders realizes the type of people this hotel attracts and the type of people they want staying over. Hotel attracts high class individuals which gives the hotel a good look. A low class person could not afford a room for $12,000 a night so it is expected for only high class individuals to arrive. This stays in his conscience because of the social division of people in Dubai. Next, Saunders notes, “Somewhere in India is a guy who’d kill to do some stair-washing in Dubai.” (591) This quotation shows that people in other countries would appreciate a job even if its a job no one would like to do. Saunders feels bad for people that have hard jobs but he knows people in Dubai are making more money there than in their own country. This dwells on his conscience because he knows this man is fortunate to be working although it is not the best job. Finally, Saunders adds, “ I can go home and write about it, making more for writing about it than he’ll make in many, many years of doing it.” (591) This quotation indicates Saunders understands the division of income between the man and him. He knows this man will have hard labor all his life meanwhile Saunders could simply write a something and make the amount of money it would take him,

The plot structure not only forces people to reevaluate their views on capitalism, the American Dream, and opportunity itself, but furthermore advocates social change. The book implicitly suggests communist ideals through the characters of Tom and Casey. Casey, in his questioning of Christian dogma, begins to reevaluate equality, in the terminology of what is holy.

Similarly to Ellis in American Psycho, Sloan Wilson suggests the harmful essence of the ambitious quest for riches in America first, by connecting money and material to violence in a more realistic and believable sense. Where Bret Easton Ellis uses bloody caricature of the wealthy to criticize the “American Dream,” Sloan Wilson takes a different approach, describing a realistic domain that more accurately reflects the lives of the middle class. In The Man in The Gray Flannel Suit, Tom Rath races through his mind searching for impressive stats to share with his possible future employer, then admitting, “Another statistical fact came to him then, a fact which he knew would be ridiculously melodramatic to put into an application for a job a

In understanding the complex nature of the American Dream, Tom is the most egotistical of them all. His family has enormous wealth. Tom represents “old money” and the intergeneration transfer of wealth; which he offensively exploits. He lives in East Egg where the old aristocrats live. Tom is also a hypocrite, and his constant use of racist comments towards other ethnic groups and those less fortunate than himself indicate to me the reader that he feels he is superior.