在德萊塞的小說中，都市女工們試圖通過自身努力進行自我型塑，她們的身份建構過程反映了20世紀初各種文化力量在都市空間的交彙、融合、矛盾與衝突。《都市空間與文化想像：德萊塞小說中女工形像的文化表征》以文化再現理論為視角，采用文本細讀法，結合時代背景，探討了德萊塞對20世紀初女性走出家庭、進入勞動力市場的看法，以及他對美國社會、文化所作的批判性思考，具有較高的理論研究價值和一定的社會現實意義。

Introduction
Chapter One The Space for Consumption and the Commodification of Self-Image in Sister Carrie
Chapter Two The Decline of "True Woman" and the Moral Dilemma of the City in Jennie Gerhardt
Chapter Three Conflicting Desires and the Disillusionment of the American Dream in An American Tragedy 1
Conclusion
Works Cited

《都市空間與文化想像：德萊塞小說中女工形像的文化表征》：
The dawning of consumer culture and its affiliated institutions,like advertising and the department store, changed American economic patterns and social mentality, two transformations that occasioned the rise of the value ofimage. As an entirely new way oflife, consumerism rested on commodity exchange and consumption. To promote selling, commercial institutions, like advertisements and department stores,assumed roles as ideological apparatus in that they co-authored a whole set of values to encourage material possession. The impact of image operates within the broad framework of consumerism and bears intrinsic relationship to two cultural-economic institutions: the advertisement and the department store.
The last two decades of the nineteenth century were marked by the burgeoning of consumerism, a modern lifestyle coming to full strength around the middle of the twentieth century. Advertisements created and promoted exciting images of commodities to stimulate or even invent desires to buy. The skillful commodity display in various shops, especially in department stores, made every effort to present the commodities as desirable and appealing and encouraged people to "possess" them,albeit at a certain price. The visual feast that shopping centers provided placed commercial transaction under the cloak ofinnocent pleasure and manipulated people to desire the act ofpurchasing.
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