FREE ESSAY ON THEODORE DREISER'S SISTER CARRIE

THEODORE DREISER'S SISTER CARRIE

Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie is a simple tale of a young, pretty eighteen year old
girl Caroline Meeber also know as Carrie. 
When Carrie got on the train from Columbia City to Chicago she had only few cheap items
in her trunk and her sister's address on 
a piece of paper. Being only eighteen she was still full of the illusions of ignorance
and youth(Dreiser, 7). She was both afraid of 
the things to come and exited by the countless possibilities offered by one of the
largest cities of the late 19th century - Chicago. 
As soon as Carrie arrives in Chicago various obstacles face her. She has no experience at
working outside home, which makes 
finding any work very difficult. She does not like the simple, and in her view, boring
way of life her sister and brother in law live. 
Being this young and curious woman she yearns for more than what is around her. She has
no education, no wealth to fall on and 
as we read the novel we also discover she has no morals. Even though at some point
Dreiser claims that Carrie is the victim of 
the city's hypnotic influence(Dreiser, 79) it becomes clear that in fact she is not a
helpless victim by any means - she just simply 
goes along with anything and anyone who comes along. Tired and disappointed with her
early days at a low paying hard work 
Carrie chooses to leave her sister - the only real family she has in the city - and goes
off with a Drouet, a man she just recently 
met on the train. Carrie knew nothing about Drouet except that he seemed to like her and
appeared to have more money than she 
could ever got her hands on. When she goes off with him there is no conflict within her,
no regrets, no second thoughts. As soon 
as an opportunity to leave her boring life arrived Carrie took it and never looked back.
All she cared about was the fact that now 
she no longer needed to work long hours for little pay. By becoming Drouet's kept woman
she no longer had to worry about 
getting comfortable clothing, good meal and money. People knew her as Mrs. Drouet and she
liked it. Through Drouet Carrie met 
her next man - Hurstwood, a manager at Fitzgerald and Moy'. Carrie flirted and spend time
with him without giving it a second 
thought. It did not bother her that Hurstwood was twice her age - in fact he was old
enough to be her father. She never stopped 
to think that someone of his position, and in her eyes he was definitely much higher on a
social scale than Drouet, might be 
married, have a family, responsibilities and obligations to them as well as to others. To
Carrie Hurstwood seemed drag in the 
direction of honor(Dreiser, 128), but how would she know what honor was and what it
meant? She had none - otherwise she 
would never leave her family to become a kept woman and soon after that a home wrecker.
Hurstwood left his wife, children and 
respectable job to carry on his affair with Carrie. He even stole from his longtime
employers to be with Carrie. In return she 
dumped him when he proved to be of no use to her in the quest for the better life. As
Dreiser observed Carrie wanted pleasure, 
she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be(Dreiser,
139). Even years later when she 
became a famous and popular New York actress she still did not possess what she desired.
People admired her, she was paid 
very well, and yet there was always something missing. She never got married - not to
Drouet, not to Hurstwood; she just used 
them both to get ahead without even realizing that what she was doing was wrong and
immoral. Instead she believed they did her 
wrong. Therefore Carrie expressed no feelings of shame, regret, guilt or remorse for
hurting Drouet and leading Hurstwood 
towards his lonely death in a strange city among strangers. At the end of the novel as
Carrie sits in her rocking chair, surrounded 
by her beautiful gowns and expensive furniture there the sense that she is not happy and
never could be. She is alone among many friend and
admirers. Although she changed her economic status by earning more and more, she could
never change her social 
standing. She was born poor, grew up without education and privileges of wealth and that
could never be overlooked in the proper 
society of the Victorian age. Carrie could never accomplish a position of a Victorian
woman with all the trimmings implied: wealth, education,
family background and values.