However, the publication battles over Sister Carrie caused Dreiser to become depressed, so much so that his brother sent him to a sanitarium for a short while. Her first job offer represents substantially less financial security than she had hoped to find. Realizing how small the apartment is, Carrie then writes to Drouet telling him she cannot see him because there is no room for visitors. Imagine a life where everything you think or do is controlled by the government and going against the group norms is punished by isolation, torture or death. That night she goes for a walk in order to think about things. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of the Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In McTeague, the most daring novel of the times, lust and vice were punished in the end to furnish the reader with a moral lesson.
Carrie then decides to find a job in the theater. Because she is so eager to be a consumer, Carrie not surprisingly first discerns the double standard governing men's and women's conduct in the way Hurstwood sees fit to spend his dwindling store of money. . Humanists of the Renaissance tended to have great power in society and were highly scrutinized for being too ambiguous in their beliefs by later historians. Sister Carrie was in fact a book so far ahead of its time that it is as alive and valid today as when it was written.
From Carries situations the book can be read as a tragedy of putting that much importance and value to sex, however to advan. About a week later Drouet goes into Fitzgerald and Moy's and starts talking to Hurstwood. Her desire for material goods and the status that these things represent is the reason for her choice of all the men in her life with the exception of Ames, who when Carrie interacts with she changes significantly and has deeper, less materialistic ambitions and in terms of all the characters, is the driving force of the action. He dresses the part of an important person, too. Coal is one of the driving forces behind the industrialization, and as such the dream can also be interpreted to mean that Carrie has been seduced by the materialism that such industrialization offers her.
Nearly every aspect of traditional life was challenged and among these was the role of women. Chapter 6 Carrie returns home from her first day of work and informs the Hansons that she does not like the work. Carrie will stay with Minnie and her husband Sven Hanson, who live in a small, meagerly furnished apartment. Nichols commented on four of my six paragraphs in the body of my paper about tying my ideas back to my thesis. I know like my family, I can always count on him for the big and little things in life. George's wife, Julia, becomes suspicious. Though gradual, their transformations create immediate repercussions along the way.
Melanie is talking about how she is not really seeing anyone. Zender argues that Sister Carrie's emphasis on circumstance de-emphasis on character takes away from the novel. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. In fact, it can be easily argued that materialism, capitalism, and consumerism are the main driving forces behind the action in the novel. From the founding of the U. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Philip Armour, Jay Cooke, and Charles Tyson Yerkes the latter being Dreiser's model for Frank Cowperwood in The Trilogy of Desire represent both the promise and the corruption of American business.
Thus Dreiser uses this novel as a means of questioning the popular notions of gender and the role that it plays in modern society. Change in the social position of either gender often creates a predicament for the other. The novel traces the separate but nonetheless individual stories of its characters in their efforts to realize the fabulous American dream. Drouet takes it upon himself to educate her about the ways of the world and society. He is also wealthy, but not exceedingly so. She moves into a new hotel with her friend Lola Osborne and lives the life she has always dreamed yet still finds herself unhappy. Many of Sister Carrie's overarching themes--drift, chance, competition, struggle, survival--derive directly from evolutionary thought.
In her wake, she leaves her disillusioned sister, an angry suitor, and a broken-down man. Notice the choice of Drouet to sit near the window with Carrie. This shift is visible from the early chapters, when Carrie rejects the frugality and hard work favored by her sister and brother in law, Sven and Minnie Hanson, those upright but dull exemplars of the Protestant work ethic. Drouet initially plans to marry Carrie, but becomes suspicious that she is cheating on him. Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Basically, every Tuesday and Thursday morning my sister has class at 8 am at Concordia, so we share a car and leave at 7 am.
He is rejecting the Hanson's way of making money as being too slow, but he is also indicating that it is a safe way as opposed to Carrie who will risk losing her wealth the way Hurstwood does. The Rise of the City, 1878-1898. Without such a range of detail, Sister Carrie would be simply another sentimental tale. Even with all the success and material possessions she has attained do not bring her happiness. Eventually, he finds no reason to get dressed. After many failed attempts at searching for a job, he eventually gives up and confines himself to his apartment.
Her parents were Steve and Carole Underwood, and two sisters, Shanna and Stephanie. From this point on, Carrie allows herself to act in whatever manner benefits her. Through Norris' intervention, over four hundred copies were sent out to reviewers. Part of the construction of the novel is the way that Carrie is continuously distracted from becoming sad. While Drouet goes to Fitzgerald and Moy's for a cigar, Carrie heads home with the money.
New York life brings Hurstwood the realization that he will not enjoy the same preference he had known in Chicago. Business in American Life: A History. However, Carrie is left with no choice but to stay with him as he is the one who provides for her food, clothing, and shelter. Thus, during Carrie's downward movement we see her go from trains to street cars to walking. A striking example concerns the time it took to move freight from Philadelphia to Chicago: nine weeks in 1849, three days in 1859 Chandler 122. Carrie struggles to keep up the pace of her work so as not to slow down the entire line which depends on a constant supply of material.