Sacramental Shopping (Becoming Modern: New Nineteenth-Century Studies) - Hardcover

Sherman, Sarah Way

9781611684223: Sacramental Shopping (Becoming Modern: New Nineteenth-Century Studies)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611684226 ISBN 13: 9781611684223

Publisher: University of New Hampshire Press, 2013

Written a generation apart and rarely treated together by scholars, Little Women (1868) and The House of Mirth (1905) share a deep concern with materialism, moral development, and self-construction. The heroines in both grapple with conspicuous consumption, an aspect of modernity that challenges older beliefs about ethical behavior and core identity. Placing both novels at the historical intersection of modern consumer culture and older religious discourse on materialism and identity, Sarah Way Sherman analyzes how Alcott and Wharton rework traditional Protestant discourse to interpret their heroines' struggle with modern consumerism. Her conclusion reveals how Little Women's optimism, still buoyed by otherworldly justice, providential interventions, and the notion of essential identity, ultimately gives way to the much darker vision of modern materialistic culture in The House of Mirth.

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Review:

One chapter of Sacramental Shopping is devoted to Little Women, the remaining four to The House of Mirth, but Sherman's meticulous, granular exegesis of both novels is illuminating at every point. Those skeptical of the value of close reading are advised to consult Sherman for thick interpretation at its literary, anthropological, and historical best.

--American Literature

About the Author:

Sarah Way Sherman is an associate professor of English and American studies at the University of New Hampshire, USA.

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