Confessions of a Shopaholic -Sophie Kinsella-
CONSUMERISM
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Summary
Rebecca Bloomwood is the personification of the expression "living beyond ones means." Rebecca works for a financial company: Successful Savings, writing articles for the monthly financial newsletter. She hates this job, but at least she gets paid. Becky also has a lot of debt. She has too many credit cards and all of them are over their limits. Hounded by debt and being incapable of controlling her urge to purchase , Becky invents excuse after excuse and scheme after scheme for not paying up; anything, from glandular fever to broken legs or defending herself from imaginary stalkers; she just sends amusing letters to the only real stalkers in her life , that is VISA and the bank. At one point she becomes so desperate that she decides the lottery is the answer to all her problems. “Or I Could win the lottery. The lottery is by far the best solution. That would do. I could pay off all my debts, buy a car, buy a flat…”
So , she already pictures herself spending the money that she didn’t even have.” For a moment I feel faint. What will I do with £ 10 million? Where will I start? “ When the lottery doesn’t turn out well, she takes her dad’s suggestion: frugality. “<> says dad.<< You know there are always two solutions to money troubles: Cut Back or Make More Money” The idea of frugality is also sustained in the book she buys, called Controlling your cash by David E. Barton, which she considers to be the answer to all her prayers.
“Frugality . Simplicity. These are my new watchwords. A new uncluttered Zen-like life, in which I spend nothing. I mean, when you think about it, how much money do we all waste every day? No wonder I’m a little bit of debt. And really, it’s not my fault. I’ve merely been succumbing to the Western drag of materialism- which you have to have the strength of elephants to resist .” She begins by cutting out expensive lunches. So instead of buying coffee from Starbucks and a chocolate muffin, she packs cheese sandwich and bottled juice, which she devours in five minutes at her desk during lunchtime and desperate to find a way to fill in the 55 minutes of her break “a brilliant thought” o ccurs to her, she decides she needs a cook book in order to do some home cooking and there she goes shopping once again. With every failed attempt to save, make money or marry the 15th most eligible bachelor in London, she consoles herself with another expensive trinket, perpetuating her habit 2
and her troubles. At each turn, Becky sinks deeper and deeper into debt and dishonesty. And just when she has sunk as low as she can, Kinsella resurrects and redeems her. Becky uncovers a headline-making financial story and makes a name for herself. The day her story is printed, Becky is quickly called and asked to appear on TV. A financial expert will appear opposite her to tell the company's side of the story. But he turns out to be the PR guy Becky has a crush on. Not even the investment business thought it necessary to appear on TV to repay their broken image. That’s why businesses have PR companies. At the end of the book Becky is in a whole different position from where she was at the beginning. She has a new job, lots of money to pay off her debts and she has finally found love.
Postmodernity focuses on social, economic and political changes in society. Postmodernist culture is an amalgamation of element and traits from the past and the present, a horizon of multiple choices, of unlimited autonomy, of instability, a promoter of hedonism and devaluation of reason. Undoubtedly, postmodernism bears the mark of “hyper”: hyper -power, hyper-narcissism of the performing pragmatic and versatile individual and last but not least, hyperconsumerism. Postmodernism and consumerism are tightly connected since the former emerged together with the appearance of a new configuration of politics and economics called “late capitalism” dominated by rising consumerism affecting many aspect of our domestic lives.
The term (Consumerism) refers to “the belief that a society or individual benefits from using large quantity of goo ds and services” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1995.) The postmodern society involves its members rather as consumers than as producers, the purpose being to create false needs through transforming today’s luxury into tomorrow’s necessity.
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