30
Sister Carrie shocked the public when Doubleday, Page and
Company published it in 1900. In fact, it was so controversial that it
almost missed being printed at all. Harpers refused the first copy, and
the book went to Frank Doubleday. After the Doubleday printers typeset
the book one of the partners’ wives read it and so strongly opposed its
sexual nature that the publisher produced only a few editions. In
addition to the book’s theme of sexual impropriety, the public disliked
the fact that Theodore Dreiser presented a side of life that proper
Americans did not care to acknowledge. Even worse, Dreiser made no
moral judgements on his characters’ actions. He wrote about infidelity
and prostitution as natural occurrences in the course of human
relationships. Dreiser wrote about his characters with pity, compassion,
and a sense of awe.
While the book appalled Americans, the English
appreciated it. William Heinemann published an English
version of the book in 1901. While the book sold well in
England, Sister Carrie did not enjoy much success in the
United States, even though B. W. Dodge & Co. had
reprinted it. In order to make ends meet Dreiser worked at
other literary jobs. In 1911, when the magazine where he
was employed stopped publication and he was out of work,
he began to write nonstop to complete his next novel,
Jennie Gerhardt. Critics liked Jennie Gerhardt so much that
they began to reconsider the merits of Sister Carrie. A new
31
edition of Sister Carrie was published, and it became
Dreiser’s most successful novel.
Sister Carrie tells the story of two characters: Carrie Meeber, an
ordinary girl who rises from a low-paid wage earner to a high-paid
actress, and George Hurstwood, a member of the upper middle class
who falls from his comfortable lifestyle to a life on the streets. Neither
Carrie nor Hurstwood earn their fates through virtue or vice, but rather
through random circumstance. Their successes and failures have no
moral value; this stance marks Sister Carrie as a departure from the
conventional literature of the period.
Dreiser touches upon a wide range of themes and experiences
in Sister Carrie, from grinding poverty to upper-middle class comfort.
The novel dwells on the moment as it is experienced; the characters are
plunged into the narrative without the reader being told much, if any, of
their histories. Their identities are constantly subject to change,
reflecting the modern American experience that had been ushered in by
the developing capitalist economy. In the process of this development,
thousands of rural Americans rushed to the cities to find jobs and to
build themselves new lives and identities. Sister Carrie captures the
excitement of that experience.
The basic story is uncomplicated, as Philip Gerber observes:
These human leaves are caught in the winds of chance and
circumstance: one tossed upward toward (but never
32
reaching) fulfillment, another dragged downward to ruin, a
third swept along briskly but at a dead level. Of Dreiser’s
principals, Carrie Meeber begins as “a waif amid forces”
and ends as Carrie Madanda, popular favourite of the
musical comedy stage; George Hurstwood we meet as the
impeccably gloomed manager of a prosperous saloon but
leaves as a rugged, penniless suicide. Charles Drouet, the
single minor character whose career the novel span, both
begins and finishes a shallow but congenial sales man, a
personality boy; he is so steadily prosperous that he never
consciously confronts the forces which shapes him.1
Sister Carrie opens in August 1889 with eighteen year old Carrie,
Caroline Meeber, unencumbered by moral values but “full of illusions of
ignorance and youth” (1). She carries her train ticket to Chicago, a small
trunk, a small lunch in a paper box, and a scrap of paper with her
sister’s address.
One of the biggest changes that Capitalism brought to American
Culture was an overwhelming emphasis on "conspicuous consumption"
or the purchasing of goods and services in such a way that one's buying
power becomes immediately evident. Dreiser carefully catalogues in
specific detail every Carrie owns: a cheap imitation alligator-skin
satchel, a yellow leather snap purse, and four dollars. Because Carrie
cannot afford a real alligator-skin satchel, but still wants the status that
conspicuous consumption would give her, she owns the cheap
imitation. In effect, conspicuous consumption of genuine luxuries
33
produced a market for cheaper imitations. Dreiser's description of Carrie
ends with the exact amount of money she has. This emphasis on
money is an important theme throughout the novel. In addition to
representing consumption, Carrie also serves as a symbol of the
American middle class. Carrie is "ambitious to gain material things" (2).
Her personality reflects the material desires of the growing American
middle class. She wants to accumulate material possessions because
she knows that it is surest route to high status.
In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the economy of
the United States was expanding rapidly. Large cities became the
centres of intense economic activity and people looking for work convert
on them. The need for labour was so great that not only men but also
large numbers of young and unmarried women entered the work force.
However, although single women were free to move around, they were
still subjected to the conventional rules that governed their relationship
with men.
Carrie is frightened to leave home, but determined to make her
way in the city:
Whatever touch of regret at parting characterized her
thoughts, it was certainly not for advantages now being
given up. A gush of tears at her mother’s farewell kiss, a
touch in her throat when the cars clacked but the flour mill
where her father worked by the day, a pathetic sigh as the
familiar green environs of the village passed in review, and
34
the threads which bound her so lightly to girlhood and
home were irretrievably broken. (1)
According to Dreiser, when a young girl leaves her home, one of
the two things can happen. Either the girl will be saved by someone and
become "better" or the girl will fall into "the Cosmopolitan standard of
virtue and become worse" (1). Carrie is then described as "a halfequipped little knight, she was, venturing to reconnoiter the mysterious
city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off supremacy" (2).
Thus the first chapter sets up a great deal of the overall plot and
the theme of the novel. Sister Carrie leaves the home, makes her first
entrance into the world, and is forced to immediately start growing up.
The train side away from home is a traditional image of departure.
Dreiser's comment about a young girl leaving home is almost
immediately followed by Carrie’s first task, her encounter with Charlie
Drouet, a travelling salesman, whose flashy clothing and talkative way
make a positive impression on Carrie. Drouet approaches her from
behind and talks into her ear. Critics are of the view that this is
analogous to the devil, whispering from behind, but seducing
nonetheless. Thus, the author immediately pushes Carrie down the path
of vices, or "Cosmopolitan standard of virtue."
Although “a certain sense of what was conventional” (2) warns
Carrie to remain aloof, the drummer’s magnetism prevails. Impressed
35
by his purse chocked with green backs, his new suit and shiny tan
shoes, and his general sheen of sophistication, Carrie soon is speaking
with Drouet as confidentially as if he were an old family friend. By the
time they part on the station platform in Chicago, a date has been
tentatively agreed on. It is a prime example of how this novel exposes
the inadequacy of words when communicating:
How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the
volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining
together great inaudible feelings and purposes. Here were
these two, bandying little phrases, drawing purses, looking
at cards, and both unconscious of how inarticulate all their
real feelings were. Neither was wise enough to be sure of
the working of the mind of the other. He could not tell how
his luring succeeded. She could not realise that she was
drifting, until he secured her address. Now she felt that she
had yielded something ― he, that he had gained a victory.
Already they felt that they were somehow associated.
Already he took control in directing the conversation. His
words were easy. Her manner was relaxed. (6)
The train arrives in Chicago. Carrie and Drouet get off together
but she refuses to carry her bags. She meets her sister Minnie at the
station, looks back to Drouet one time and then starts to feel alone in
spite of the fact that her sister were along with her: “She felt something
lost to her when he moved away. When he disappeared she felt his
36
absence thoroughly. With her sister she was much alone, a lone figure
in a tossing, thoughtless sea” (8).
Carrie moves into one of the rooms in Minnie’s apartment. Mr.
Hanson, Minnie’s husband, arrives home that night but does not pay
much attention to Carrie. Carrie soon realizes that the Hansons expect
her to find a job and pay them rent. As for as they are concerned, she is
supplemental income. Thus, we notice the difference between dream
and reality in the lives of people. When Carrie is received by her sister
Minnie, she feels "cold reality taking her by the hand" (8). We realize by
now that a dream of material beauty had prompted her to leave
Wisconsin, but that dream, stimulated by Drouet, vanishes at the first
grim sight of the Hansons' "lean and narrow life" (9).
It is clear that Minnie is far more concerned with what Carrie can
do them financially instead of being excited to have one member of her
family live with her. Mr. Hanson speaks briefly with Carrie before going
to bed earlier than his wife, claiming that he has to get up early the next
morning. Carrie learns that Minnie has to get up even earlier in order to
make him breakfast and get him ready to go to work. Carrie is unable
and unwilling to live the kind of life that Minnie is satisfied with. Thus
Carrie gets up in the morning, much later than her sister. Minnie is
already sewing, there by showing how industrious she is. Just as her
brief encounter with Drouet flashed a grimmer of those things she must
37
acquire, she knows at once that the life lived by the Hansons epitomizes
a fate she must avoid.
The attraction of the new, burgeoning city is described in the
following passage. It is also an early foreshadowing of events, which
sees the city (New York) being the place of Carrie's rise to fortune and
Hurstwood's decline into poverty and suicide:
In 1889 Chicago had the peculiar qualifications of growth
which made such adventuresome pilgrimages even on the
part of young girls plausible. Its many and growing
commercial opportunities gave it widespread fame, which
made of it a giant magnet, drawing to itself, from all
quarters, the hopeful and the hopeless - those who had
their fortune yet to make and those whose fortunes and
affairs had reached a disastrous climax elsewhere. (11)
An important theme of the novel, the theme of hope, is introduced
early in the novel. Chicago is essentially a society of promise; it is an
immigrant town growing so fast that it has grown itself. This world of
hope attracts people like the Hansons, immigrants who represent the
immigrant stereotype. They slowly accumulate wealth but are skeptical
of people who have made money too quickly. However, Dreiser
discards the Hansons' approach to life. They are too dull, too dreary,
and they talk the magic and fate that Carrie is in search of. Sister Carrie
is a novel about unrestricted economic life, the hot bed of industrial
growth. The novel presents to the reader not only the doubting skeptical
38
of Chicago’s rapid growth but also of the many workers that Carrie sees
through windows. Carrie’s spirit sinks at the "thought of entering these
mighty concerns" (13).
Carrie walks to the commercial district to look for work. Shy and
fearful, she cannot bring herself to ask for a job at the most of the
places she passes. Eventually she finds a job in a shoe factory, where
she earns four and a half dollars a week. Carrie's job search
demonstrates the dehumanizing side of capitalist values. Employers
eye her as they would any other sort of commodity, deciding whether or
not she is worth her cost.
Hanson and Minnie are happy that Carrie has found work so
quickly, but Hanson interrupts Carrie’s dreams of buying power of her
wage when he asks if she will have to spend any on car fare. They
expect her to pay for the food she eats in their apartment and her
notions of spending money on entertainment can counter to their plans
to profit from her stay in Chicago.
Thus Sister Carrie shows how money and earning power can
come to govern the relationship between family members. As
mentioned earlier, Minnie and Hanson do not invite Carrie to live with
them out of desire for the presence of a close family member: rather,
they hope to profit from her labour by charging her for board. Here,
Carrie becomes a customer, not a person.
39
Carrie works hard at the shoe factory. After working hours several
people try to accompany her home, but Carrie is frightened of them and
rushes away. The distinction between the Hansons and Carrie is drawn
wide at this point: the issue divides them is money. For Carrie, money
represents possibilities. For example when in the department store, she
contemplates the amount of things she can buy:
She could not help feeling the claim of each trinket and
valuable upon her personally, and yet she did not stop.
There was nothing there which she could not have usednothing which she did not long to own. The dainty slippers
and stockings, the delicately frilled skirts and petticoats, the
laces, ribbons, hair combs, purses, all touched her with
individual desire, and she felt keenly the fact that not any of
these things were in the range of her purchase. (17)
Carrie is unhappy that she does not have enough money to buy
things she wants. Her desire for material wealth becomes her defining
characteristic. She is depicted throughout as a modern consumer who
prefers not to follow her sister Minnie into a life of toil and drudgery:
Not only did Carrie feel the drag of desire for all which was
new and pleasing in apparel for women, but she noticed
too, with a touch at the heart, the fine ladies who elbowed
and ignored her, brushing past in utter disregard of her
presence, themselves eagerly enlisted in the materials
which the store contained. Carrie was not familiar with the
appearance of her more fortunate sisters of the city. Neither
had she before known the nature and appearance of the
40
shop girls with whom she now compared poorly. They were
pretty in the main, some even handsome, with an air of
independence and indifference which added, in the case of
the more favoured, a certain piquancy. Their clothes were
neat, in many instances fine, and wherever she
encountered the eye of one it was only to recognise in it a
keen analysis of her own position ― her individual
shortcomings of dress and that shadow of manner which
she thought must hang about her and make clear to all who
and what she was. A flame of envy lighted in her heart. She
realised in a dim way how much the city held ― wealth,
fashion, ease – every adornment for women, and she
longed for dress and beauty with a whole heart. (17)
In winter, she becomes too ill to work and loses her job. However,
during her search for another job, Carrie encounters Drouet on the
street. He takes her to lunch. The high prices at the restaurant dismay
Carrie, but Drouet orders a large meal for both of them. He comes to
know that she has been ill and that she has been trying for several days
to find another job. Carrie says that she will probably have to leave
Chicago and return home. She reluctantly accepts twenty dollars from
Drouet, who tells her to buy some new clothes and meet him for a
matinee show the next day.
Several themes pervade the novel. One of the major issues is
that of clothing. Clothes are first introduced in the first chapter, when
Carrie becomes conscious of her shabby dress in relation to Drouet's
41
suit. In winter, she needs winter clothes, and it is her lack of clothing
that causes Carrie to fall ill and lose her job. Clothes represent one of
the means by which social status attained. For Carrie, Drouet's offer to
purchase her new clothes is similar to a social advancement.
Another important theme is the nature of mobility. Mobility has
several connotations wheat is almost always directly correlated with
social status. During Carrie’s downward movement we find her go from
trains to street cars to waling. Ones she loses her job and cannot afford
the street cars, Carrie reaches the bottom of the society: "As on the
previous morning, Carrie walked down town, for she began to realise
now that her four-fifty would not even allow her car fare after she paid
her board" (40). Her condition is in contrast with that of Drouet in the
restaurant. Carrie thinks about the fact that "he rode on trains" (45) and
grants him a higher social distinction.
Carrie meets Drouet, her Prince Charming, again the next day
and he takes her out shopping, buying her an entire wardrobe in the
process. Carrie is elated by the way that she agrees to allow him to rent
an apartment for her. Carrie leaves the Hanson’s home in secrecy, a
perfunctory note her only farewell, and moves to room Drouet has taken
for his sister on Wabash Street. In no time the two of them are sharing a
three-room flat in Ogden Place, and Carrie is the proud possessor of all
42
it takes, at this elementary stage, to make her happy: fine clothes,
abundant money, and the attention of Drouet.
When Minnie finds the note that Carrie has left, her response is
very dry. She and her husband are unemotional about it and say, "now
she has gone and done it" and "what can you do?" (57). Minnie realizes
what must have happened, but all she can say is "poor Sister Carrie!"
(57). It is quite striking that the Hanson’s reaction to Carrie’s departure
is very flat. The language they use is completely devoid of emotion. The
narrator observes:
Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the
universe, untutored man is but a wisp in the wind. Our
civilisation is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it
is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in
that it is not yet wholly guided by reason. On the tiger no
responsibility rests. We see him aligned by nature with the
forces of life ― he is born into their keeping and without
thought he is protected. We see man far removed from the
lairs of the jungles, his innate instincts dulled by too near an
approach to free-will, his free-will not sufficiently developed
to replace his instincts and afford him perfect guidance. He
is becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and
desires; he is still too weak to always prevail against them.
As a beast, the forces of life aligned him with them; as a
man, he has not yet wholly learned to align himself with the
forces. In this intermediate stage he wavers ― neither
drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet wisely
putting himself into harmony by his own free-will. He is
43
even as a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of
passion, acting now by his will and now by his instincts,
erring with one, only to retrieve by the other, falling by one,
only to rise by the other ― a creature of incalculable
variability. We have the consolation of knowing that
evolution is ever in action, that the ideal is a light that
cannot fail. He will not forever balance thus between good
and evil. When this jangle of free-will and instinct shall have
been adjusted, when perfect understanding has given the
former the power to replace the latter entirely, man will no
longer vary. The needle of understanding will yet point
steadfast and unwavering to the distant pole of truth. (5657)
Carrie's impoverished situation incites genuine pity, but Drouet's
offer of money is tinged with something other than simple compassion.
Handing her the money gives him the opportunity to touch her hand, the
first step in establishing physical intimacy with her. In other words, he is
buying the opportunity for sex. The lunch and the loan are only the first
step in getting it. Once he presses the twenty dollars into her hand,
Carrie feels bound to him by "strange tie of affection" (47). The novel
shows relations between individual people especially between men and
women, to be governed by the consumer mentality. With his money,
Drouet has purchased the right to initiate physical intimacy with Carrie.
It is interesting to notice that at many points in the novel an exact
dollar amount is mentioned. Whether at work, at out shopping, at home
44
or in the street, Carrie lives in a world of prices. Her pay is exactly four
dollars and fifty cents a week; car fare costs sixty cents a week; a cheap
lunch costs ten cents; and so on. By accepting Drouet's money, Carrie
implicitly sets her cost to him at exactly twenty dollars.
Carrie's desire to hide her new living arrangements from her
sister and brother-in-law shows that she is at least partly aware that she
is selling herself. Her sharing of an apartment with Drouet makes it clear
that she has become his mistress. Ironically, Carrie is paid more for her
body than she is for her labour, thus proving the view that a women’s
most marketable product is sex.
Thus, Carrie is a symbol of the social values of the rapidly
developing American consumer culture. To her money represents raw
power. She has not yet learned the lesson that money alone is worth
nothing. Only in relation to consumer goods does it represent anything
of value.
It is said that in the early 1900s, the morals and virtues of the
Victorian era still guided people’s actions. People with proper upbringing
did not speak of sex. The public was shocked that Dreiser’s characters
openly participated in explicit relationships and that Dreiser seemed to
condone it.
Carrie uses sex to gain status for herself: she sees nothing wrong
in living with Drouet to get the clothes she wants, and to have
45
opportunities to move in Chicago’s affluent circles. Later Carrie sees
that Hurstwood can offer her an even higher standard of living. She
ignores the fact that he is already married and they two of them will be
committing adultery. With no regard for Drouet’s emotions, she breaks
off their relationship and pursues one with Hurstwood. After living with
Hurstwood for some time, she realizes, she can no longer benefit from
the arrangement and leaves him, too.
Drouet introduces Carrie to his friend Hurstwood, the manager of
one of the top bars in the city. He is far more refined and elegant than
Drouet. Dreiser points out that Drouet has "conquered" Carrie, whereas
she has allegedly lost something. However, he also shows us that
Carrie has gained a safe place to life as opposed to being half-starved.
Carrie sees herself as a prettier person on the outside, but as a worse
person on the inside. When Drouet tells her that he has invited
Hurstwood over, he mentions that she must pretend to be Mrs. Drouet.
Carrie asks him why they do not simply get married, but he claims that
he will marry her as soon as he finishes a property deal he is setting up.
According to Dreiser:
In the light of the world's attitude toward woman and her
duties, the nature of Carrie's mental state deserves
consideration. Actions such as hers are measured by an
arbitrary scale. Society possesses a conventional standard
whereby it judges all things. All men should be good, all
women virtuous. Wherefore, villain, hast thou failed?
46
For all the liberal analysis of Spencer and our
modern naturalistic philosophers, we have but an infantile
perception of morals. There is more in the subject than
mere conformity to a law of evolution. It is yet deeper than
conformity to things of earth alone. It is more involved than
we, as yet, perceive. Answer, first, why the heart thrills;
explain wherefore some plaintive note goes wandering
about the world, undying; make clear the rose's subtle
alchemy evolving its ruddy lamp in light and rain. In the
essence of these facts lie the first principles of morals. (68)
Hurstwood's family includes his seventeen-year-old daughter
Jessica, his twenty-year-old son George, Jr., and his wife Julia. The
family lives in a ten-room house but is clearly not a part of the upper
middle classes. Mrs. Hurstwood expects her children to become part of
the elite upper classes and provide her with great social status. Soon
Hurstwood starts visiting their apartment to play cards with Carrie and
Drouet, He next offers to take them to the theatre. When Drouet is
away, Hurstwood begins to stop by the apartment and woo Carrie,
finally getting her to kissing while on a buggy ride. He falls madly in love
with her and starts to think of getting her to run away with him.
Hurstwood represents the modern, capitalist man. His private,
married live is a subordinated to his public identity, not the other way
round; he thinks of an indiscreet affair as a threat to his job, not his
home life. Julia and Jessica serves to point out Carrie’s naïveté. They
live a far more comfortable life than she does, but they are still not
47
satisfied. Once again, we see the driving force behind the consumer
society: unsatisfied desire. Regardless of how much money one has,
there are always more things to buy. For example, while Carrie is
unhappy because she cannot afford nice dresses, Julia and Jessica are
unhappy because they cannot afford vacations in Europe. And while
Carrie wants to belong to their social world, Julia and Jessica want to
belong to the social world of the people who are even wealthier. Julia’s
unhappy marriage illustrates the position of the married women.
Hurstwood regards her as one of his possessions, and an ornament
that he can show off as proof of his success. Because he believes that
Julia is susceptible to flattery, and because he has little faith in her, he
knows "something might happen" (67) if he does not key close watch on
her. Although it is not stated directly, it is clear that the "something" that
Hurstwood fears he has an extra marital affair. For Julia and Hurstwood,
the marriage contract serves a different form of the transaction of sex
for money. Julia receives a secure, comfortable, upper middle class life
style in return for agreeing give for her husband the right of exclusive
sexual access.
Hurstwood, blinded by his passion for Carrie, makes his own fatal
mistakes. Unknowingly, he is seen at a theatre with Carrie and Drouet.
He is spied riding in an open carriage with Carrie. Attending an Amateur
theatrical in which Carrie participates, he rashly explains his wife’s
48
absence by insisting that she is too ill to attend. Her husband’s
indiscretions are reported to Julia, which is followed by vehement
accusation on her part, an inept handling of the situation on his part,
and ultimately a scandalous suit for divorce.
Julia's dissatisfaction with her marriage to Hurstwood presents
the reader with one vision of the fate of married woman in a male
dominated, capitalist world. While Julia hopes to divorce Hurstwood,
Carrie longs to be married, unaware that marriage might legitimize her
relationship but will never give her the freedom she wants. Unsatisfied
with her role as Drouet's false wife, she believes that marriage will free
her of the web of lies that surrounds her. She wants to stop imitating the
role of Drouet's wife and become the genuine article. What she fails to
realize is that Julia has lost her identity through marriage. In the end,
Hurstwood's duplicity turns both of his relationships – his real marriage
to Julia and has false marriage to Carrie — into imitations. Hurstwood's
crucial role in determining the value of the relationships demonstrates
one of the conventional standards that permeate the novel: a woman
has social standing only when a man desires for her.
Meanwhile Drouet has also discovered that Carrie has been
spending far more time with Hurstwood than he ever thought. Drouet
angrily walks out on Carrie, and Hurstwood foolishly fights with his wife,
49
not realizing that his wife has entire property in her name. She then files
for divorce, hires a detective, and locks Hurstwood out of the house.
The solutions to Hurstwood's predicament occurs in an action of
most crucial relevance. According to Philip L. Gerber:
In dramatizing man’s ultimate helplessness against the
forces which prod him, Dreiser’s handling of the theft at
Fitzgerald and Moy's ranks among the half-dozen most
telling scenes in all his work. This incident was so pertinent
to his philosophy of life that with variations it was used
again twenty-five years later at the heart of An American
Tragedy. A perfectly balanced combination of the motive
and accident leads Hurstwood into perpetration of the crime
whose result will be his own destruction.2
Hurstwood comes to know that Drouet is no longer living with
Carrie and soon he assumes that they have parted ways. He returns to
work. While closing, he discovers that the safe has been left unlocked,
leaving ten thousand dollars in cash unprotected. He knows that Julia
will get everything in the divorce. Even though Carrie and he could live
happily for years with that money, he decides to leave it in the safe.
However, the safe clicks shut while the money is still in his hands. He
thinks that since he has never been given the combination to the safe,
he may get into trouble for removing the money from the safe. He
immediately rushes to Carrie's apartment and tells her that Drouet is in
hospital with a serious injury and that he wants to see her. Carrrie
50
hurries out with Hurstwood, who takes her to the railway station. She
slowly realized that Hurstwood has lied to her. Hurstwood pleads with
her to run away with him to Montreal. He tells her that he is divorcing his
wife and promises to marry Carrie. Not knowing anything about the
money, Carrie agrees to go with Hurstwood.
Dreiser based the central incident of Sister Carrie ― Hurstwood's
theft and his "abduction" of Carrie ― on the experience of one of his
sisters, Emma Dreiser. In early 18, L.A. Hopkins, a clerk in a Chicago
saloon, stole approximately $3, 500 from his employers and fled with
Emma to New York. Dreiser was then fourteen and was living with his
mother in the small town of Warsaw, Indiana. He heard of Emma’s
escapade at that time and also when he moved to Chicago in mid-1887,
but it was probably not until the early 1890s that he learned of it fully
from his brother Paul and from Emma herself.
There are a number of major as well as minor differences
between contemporary newspaper accounts of the theft and Dreiser's
fictional version of it in Sister Carrie. These differences stemmed both
from Dreiser's sources of information ― Emma in particular no doubt
wished to portray herself as favourably as possible ― and from his
reshaping of what he knew about the incident. The most important
differences involve the social status of Hopkins and the nature of the
elopement. Hurstwood is a manager who lives on the upper-middle-
51
class North Side; Hopkins, a "trusted clerk," has a home on the less
fashionable West Side. And Hopkins and Emma appear to have
carefully planned the theft and the flight, unlike the "accident" and
"abduction" themes which characterize these events in the novel.
At one point in the history of Dreiser's critical reputation it was
conventional to accuse him of merely "copying from life" because of his
close use of documentary sources. But Dreiser’s fictional version of the
Hopkins affair reveals that he transformed a tawdry and occasionally
comic event into a narrative of depth and complexity by his introduction
of such new elements as Hurstwood's social distinction, Carrie’s
"innocence," and the accidental closing of the safe.
From this climactic episode, the novel chronicles the steady
decline of Hurstwood and the corresponding rise of Carrie. The tone is
set at once: "Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is
very evident that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean
like New York…. The sea was already full of whales. A common fish
must needs disappear wholly from view ― remain unseen. In other
words, Hurstwood was nothing"(214).
In Montreal Hurstwood does not realize the predicament he has
got himself into until the detective tracks him down. Though he cannot
be arrested in Canada, his reputation is at risk. By hinting at the
Publicity Hurstwood's theft would receives in Montreal newspapers, the
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detective threatens something almost as valuable as the ten thousand
dollars: Hurstwood's social respectability. Hurstwood is afraid that no
matter what money made allow him to buy, it will not keep Carrie at his
side at the middle of his scandal. Also, the money will not allow him to
start a business, because no one who knows of the scandal will
patronize it. He thus returns the money to avoids to telling this Carrie
anything about the theft or his financial problems. Hurstwood leaves
Montreal for New York when he starts a business and settles in it,
Hurstwood resumes the old game of playing the husband role, taking
complete control of the financial reins. However, his attempts to play the
role of the provider he is not entirely successful.
Carrie and Hurstwood live harmoniously for two years in New
York as Hurstwood pays careful attention to Carrie. Carrie notices that
he no longer provides her with the kind of expensive entertainment he
did in Chicago, but he care to show appreciation for her keeps her
happy. However, to play his role as Carrie's husband, he respects the
same cycle of neglect he went through with Julia. Carrie has to depend
on Hurstwood to give her money for entertainment. Her access to the
public sphere is medicated through him, and he neglects to take her out
in the evenings because he believes that she enjoys her domestic life.
Carrie's experience in New York symbolizes the impersonal
modern experience in which families live in the same building for the
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years without speaking to one another. In an over- crowded city, it
takes two years to Carrie to make her first friend. Her life is
characterized by a intense isolation. Hurstwood comprises her entire
world as her only relationship is with him. Mrs.Vance's arrival changes
everything. She revives Carrie’s consumer desire. Hurstwood tried to
maintain the illusion that he can pay for things without thinking about
their prices, but Carrie’s demands on his money grow considerably after
she meets Mrs. Vance.
Hurstwood's failure to keep up appearances is the beginning of
the end of his relationship with Carrie. By choosing to wear his old
clothing, Hurstwood signals an acceptance of their poverty. We get a
view of the dehumanizing nature of a consumer society when Mrs.
Vance chooses to drop her friendship with Carrie because of
Hurstwood's appearance.
Carrie starts working for a small wage and supports Hurstwood .
The peculiar nature of her situation ― a woman supporting a man that
highlights the social relations between women and men . In return for a
man's support, a woman gives her body, but a man offers nothing to a
woman for her financial support.
Carrie's rising success coincides with Hurstwood's steady decline.
Their situations are reversed, bit since conventional social values do not
require a woman to support her husband. Carrie can move away from
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Hurstwood without the same problems Hurstwood faced when he
neglected Julia . Her decision to leave him is motivated by finances, as
was her choice to marry him in the first phase.
Carrie longs to be renowned actress and become completely
absorbed in the life of their theatre. She starts becoming more and more
famous. She becomes closer to Ames as her former ― far more ―
passion for him is revived. Hurstwood visits various charities in order to
survive. Drouet continues chasing after woman Hurstwood commits
suicide. Carrie's success grows, but she continues to suffer from an
unsatisfied desire for something even she cannot name.
With today's failing economy, Dreiser could not have been more
prophetic. Here we have a society of people who live beyond their
means, use material possessions to define themselves, and Carrie
ultimately is nothing more than a mere user. Her sense of entitlement is
particularly aggravating, but it is this kind of quality that makes the story
and characters so compelling and realistic.
Dreiser also accomplishes something that is just another sign of
what a great writer he really is. He manages to create a compelling
story of depth based largely on shallow characters. Perhaps Carrie
might be capable of depth, but she sure does not seem to value much
beyond her own self-interest. She is not a bad person; just immature.
The reader's last view of Carrie very appropriate. Rocking in her chair,
55
successful but unhappy, accomplished but unfulfilled, she dreams of
further conquests which will bring her lasting joy; yet she is driven to
acknowledge for the first time that happiness may possibly be never for
her, that perhaps her fate is " forever to be the pursuit of that radiance
of delight which tints the distant hilltops of the world" (369). In Dreiser's
universe, life takes on the aspects of "a fierce, grim struggle in which no
quarter was either given or taken, and in which all laid traps, lied,
squandered, erred through illusion."3 Carrie has now arrived in her
quest at the empty terminal which, Dreiser points out, so many
Americans finally reach, particularly those who clamber up from lowly
beginnings and are hoodwinked by the life about them into believing the
money ideal to be all in all:
Unfortunately the money problem, once solved, is not the
only thing in the world. Their lives, although they reach to
the place where they have gold signs, automobiles and
considerable private pleasures, are none the more
beautiful. Too often, because of these early conditions, they
remain warped, oppressive, greedy and distorted in every
worthy mental sense by the great fight they have made to
get their money.
Nearly the only ideal that is set before these
strugglers…is the one of getting money. A hundred
thousand children…are inoculated in infancy with the
doctrine that wealth is all-the shabbiest and most degrading
doctrine that can be impressed upon anyone.4
56
Another technique Dreiser uses is his narrative story switch. The
book is of course about Carrie herself, but as the story goes on, it
becomes more of Hurstwood's tale. Carrie is still the force driving it, but
we are given two separate lives: as Carrie manages to thrive,
Hurstwood becomes homeless, helpless. It is almost the Dorian Gray
syndrome.5 As a result of such shallow values, one part of life
deteriorates while another prospers at the same time. When Hurstwood
is forced to wait in line with all the poor people just so he can get food,
he does seem to learn a lesson about his own past arrogance, yet
chooses not to carry it out. Instead, he just gives up. Carrie, on the
other hand, has benefited from her shallowness, her mere luck, and will
continue to do so. It is almost a strange blessing that she seems to let
go of any desire to reflect on the emptiness of her life. She is satisfied
with her emotional mediocrity and even though she will always be lonely
and unhappy, she is not likely to ever realize she is the cause, or even
what she is really missing. That is why Dreiser ends with: "In your
rocking chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your
rocking chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you
may never feel"(369).
Sister Carrie is a major commentary on American society, which
is based around the idea that if one could just have more money, fame,
a different lover, or a bigger place to live, s/he would be happier.
57
Ultimately, Carrie is not happy with her money and fame, and chasing
her eventually leads Hurstwood to indifference and suicide. Drouet
continues to be his oblivious self, but arguably he is never satisfied
either ― he can never have meaningful relationships with anyone. The
following passage in Chapter XLIX of the Free Online Version of the
Restored Pennsylvania Edition, in which Carrie is talking with Bob
Ames, a cousin of her friend Mrs. Vance, sums up this view:
"Your happiness is within yourself wholly if you will only
believe it," he went on. "When I was quite young I felt as if I
were ill-used because other boys were dressed better than
I was, were more sprightly with the girls than I, and I
grieved and grieved, but now I'm over that. I have found out
that everyone is more or less dissatisfied. No one has
exactly what his heart wishes."
"Not anybody?" she asked.
"No," he said.
Carrie looked wistfully away.
"It comes down to this," he went on. "If you have powers,
cultivate them. The work of doing it will bring you as much
satisfaction as you will ever get. The huzzas of the public
don't mean anything. That's the aftermath―you've been
paid and satisfied if you are not selfish and greedy long
before that reaches you." (482-483)
Sister Carrie is not necessarily a work about morality. The
novelist does mention evil in it, but his characters are not deliberately
evil ― they suffer because they are driven by their whims and lack
58
understanding of what their actions do to those around them. One might
argue anyway that this is a better definition of sin than the overly
simplistic list of "lying/cheating/stealing." But still it cannot be said that
Dreiser was trying to teach morality in this story; he just depicts in a
naturalistic way that people tend to do what is in their own best interests
and that "fate" can lead them in different directions. He sums the idea is
up in the following passage:
Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought
is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would
like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden,
flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole
delight. They have no feeling that any result which might
flow from their action should concern them. They have no
conception of the necessity of a well-organized society
wherein all shall accept a certain quota of responsibility and
all realize a reasonable amount of happiness. They think
only of themselves because they have not yet been taught
to think of society. For them pain and necessity are the
great taskmasters. Laws are but the fences which
circumscribe the sphere of their operations. When, after
error, pain falls as a lash, they do not comprehend that their
suffering is due to misbehavior. Many such an individual is
so lashed by necessity and law that he falls fainting to the
ground, dies hungry in the gutter or rotting in the jail and it
never once flashes across his mind that he has been
lashed only in so far as he has persisted in attempting to
trespass the boundaries which necessity sets. A prisoner of
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fate, held enchained for his own delight, he does not know
that the walls are tall, that the sentinels of life are forever
pacing, musket in hand. He cannot perceive that all joy is
within and not without. He must be for scaling the bounds
of society, for overpowering the sentinel. When we hear the
cries of the individual strung up by the thumbs, when we
hear the ominous shot which marks the end of another
victim who has thought to break loose, we may be sure that
in another instance life has been misunderstood ― we may
be sure that society has been struggled against until death
alone would stop the individual from contention and evil.
(Free Online Version of the Restored Pennsylvania Edition
132-33)
In conclusion, The central theme of Sister Carrie is the effect of
the misguided and misdirected American Dream of success. The novel
traces the separate but nonetheless individual stories of its characters
in their efforts to realize the fabulous American Dream. Carrie, seeking
happiness and rising to stardom, reaches the verge of discovering
personal fulfilment is an illusory dream. Money, clothes, and success
fail to provide the happiness that they promise, but the darkest part of
Carrie's tragedy is that she fails to understand this completely.
Hurstwood, once having fallen from the "walled city" of the wealthy and
influential, resigns himself too readily to failure and defeat. He also fails
to recognize the shortcomings of a society whose values are based
upon material things. Neither Carrie nor Hurstwood ever denies the
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values of the society that makes money its god. Charles Drouet, the
"drummer," although relegated to the background midway through the
novel, represents another important aspect of Dreiser's portrait. Drouet
unconsciously assumes all the values of his day without a trace of
rebellion. Thus, the figure of Drouet completes the picture by adding the
tragedy of ignorance to Hurstwood's tragedy of failure and Carrie's
tragedy of success.
In Sister Carrie Dreiser takes his central characters from the three
classes of American economic life. He shows how they are harmed and
corrupted by the fraudulent claims of the spurious American Dream.
The blame falls on the society that compels its individuals to become
hideous and grotesque parodies of themselves.
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REFERENCES
1.
Philip L. Gerber, Theodore Dreiser (Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1964) 53-54.
2.
Philip L. Gerber, Theodore Dreiser 59.
3.
Theodore Dreiser, A Book about Myself (New York: Liveright
Publishing Corporation, 1922) 70.
4.
Theodore Dreiser, The Color of a Great City (New York, 1923) 99.
Quoted in Philip Gerber, Theodore Dreiser 63.
5.
Dorian Gray syndrome (DGS) denotes a cultural and societal
phenomenon characterized by extreme pride in one's own
appearance accompanied by difficulties coping with
the aging process and with the requirements of maturation. The
name alludes to Oscar Wilde's famous novel The Picture of Dorian
Gray. ― Wikipedia