Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.

Consumerism is undeniably a large part of post-modern society due to the notion that identity is very much determined by the objects that one possesses. Using Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero and Don Delillo’s White Noise, this paper attempts to deconstruct this identity-object relationship in orde...

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Main Author: Siti Nursyafiqa Rahman.
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/38622
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-386222019-12-10T13:21:43Z Merging reality and the ideal through consumption. Siti Nursyafiqa Rahman. School of Humanities and Social Sciences Jessie Morgan-Owens DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English Consumerism is undeniably a large part of post-modern society due to the notion that identity is very much determined by the objects that one possesses. Using Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero and Don Delillo’s White Noise, this paper attempts to deconstruct this identity-object relationship in order to argue that rather than the material object, it is the image that the consumer desires because it creates, recreates and, most importantly, asserts the self. However, the images that consumer society aggressively promotes through advertising are only an ideal that the consumer desires to have merged with his or her reality or true self. As the words ‘ideal’ and ‘reality’ themselves suggest, the two concepts can only exist as separates. Instead of simply criticizing consumption as an act that propagates consumer disillusionment, I will propose the idea that it is only mandatory for the gap that exists between the desired identity and the real self to remain since it allows consumers to avoid a state of stasis. Even though consumption keeps on driving consumers towards an unreachable goal, such a fate is better than having no more ideal to move towards when the ideal is realised. Bachelor of Arts 2010-05-13T08:36:25Z 2010-05-13T08:36:25Z 2010 2010 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/38622 en Nanyang Technological University 28 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
spellingShingle DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
Siti Nursyafiqa Rahman.
Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
description Consumerism is undeniably a large part of post-modern society due to the notion that identity is very much determined by the objects that one possesses. Using Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero and Don Delillo’s White Noise, this paper attempts to deconstruct this identity-object relationship in order to argue that rather than the material object, it is the image that the consumer desires because it creates, recreates and, most importantly, asserts the self. However, the images that consumer society aggressively promotes through advertising are only an ideal that the consumer desires to have merged with his or her reality or true self. As the words ‘ideal’ and ‘reality’ themselves suggest, the two concepts can only exist as separates. Instead of simply criticizing consumption as an act that propagates consumer disillusionment, I will propose the idea that it is only mandatory for the gap that exists between the desired identity and the real self to remain since it allows consumers to avoid a state of stasis. Even though consumption keeps on driving consumers towards an unreachable goal, such a fate is better than having no more ideal to move towards when the ideal is realised.
author2 School of Humanities and Social Sciences
author_facet School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Siti Nursyafiqa Rahman.
format Final Year Project
author Siti Nursyafiqa Rahman.
author_sort Siti Nursyafiqa Rahman.
title Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
title_short Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
title_full Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
title_fullStr Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
title_full_unstemmed Merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
title_sort merging reality and the ideal through consumption.
publishDate 2010
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/38622
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