Parental Advisory: This book explores many mature subjects such as drinking, violence, swearing, stealing, lying and fooling around. Explicit scenes of hand-holding!
Young Carrie comes from small town life to earn a living in Chicago. She briefly stays with her sister and brother-in-law, she finds work in a factory but that doesn’t fit in well with her fantasy of big city life. Even giving her as much benefit of the doubt as I could, Carrie comes off rather spoiled and lazy.
Carrie falls in with Mr. Druett, a cad who sets her up with an apartment. Slowly, she sees a world that is more like what she was expecting. Taking a ride through one of Chicago’s nicer neighborhoods and gazing at the fancy homes, She was perfectly certain that here was happiness. If she could but stroll up yon broad walk, cross that rich entrance-way, which to her was of the beauty of a jewel, and sweep in grace and luxury to possession and command-oh! how quickly would sadness flee; how, in an instant, would the heartache end.
Druett can’t provide her with much more than a few nice outfits and the small living quarters, but he does introduce her to some of his posh friends. Mr. Hurstwood, the manager of a popular saloon, immediately falls in love with Carrie whom he believes is married to Druett. Carrie admires Hurstwood but has no idea that he is married and the father of two grown children. Druett travels a lot so Hurstwood comes to call on Carrie. Druett, unsuspecting of the two, often invites Hurstwood to come out with him and Carrie when he’s in town. …they climbed into the waiting coach and drove downtown: once, only, did (Carrie) find an opportunity to express her feeling, and that was when (Hurstwood) preceded Druett in the coach and sat beside her. Before Druett was fully in, she had squeezed his hand in a gentle impulsive manner. (Hurstwood) was beside himself with affection. He could have sold his soul to be with her alone. That’s about as steamy as it gets.
Hurstwood is getting tired of his wife and home life but he is afraid if he dumps his family, his cushy job will dump him. So everything goes along pretty much like this until, in the span of twenty-four hours, Druett discovers that Hurstwood is seeing Carrie, Carrie learns that Hurstwood is married and Hurstwood finds out that Carrie is single. Mrs. Hurstwood finds that her husband has been canoodling (yeah, I said it!) and going out to the theater (the shame!). So, it could be an unhappy ending for everyone except that shortly afterward, Hurstwood comes to work late one night and finds his bosses’ safe unlocked and lots of money laying about. So Hurstwood flees to Canada with Carrie, lying to her and everyone else, to start their new life. It lasts about eighteen hours, during which time he pretends to marry Carrie, gets caught by detectives, gives almost all of the stolen money back and promises to take Carrie to New York where she can become an actress.
Life in New York is hard for both of them but it just inspires Carrie even more. Going out…Broadway taught her a sharper lesson. The scene…was now augmented and at its height. Such a crush of finery and folly she had never seen. It clinched her convictions concerning her state. She had not lived, could not lay claim to having lived, until something of this had come into her own life. Women were spending money like water; she could see that in every elegant shop she passed. She now wants so much more but Hurstwood can't even provide what Druett could back in Chicago.
Eventually, Hurstwood realizes that he has traded one set of problems for another. Not even this young girl can help him now because The delight of love had again slipped away. Has there ever been a book where the guy has an affair, runs off from his family and lives happily ever after? I doubt it. So why are so many of the men in these books (and real life) constantly trying? Do they think they are the exception or that they are smarter than every other man that has tried and failed before them?
The rest of the book follows Hurstwood’s economic, emotional, social and psychological decline and Carrie’s initial steps of independence, her determination to succeed and ultimately obtaining the life she has always wanted. In my opinion, this is the best part of the book and some of Dreiser’s best writing. Carrie meets an actual gentleman whom she realizes is the first real man she has known. Of course, he is so good that he would never make any advances towards Carrie as she is a proper, happily married lady.
I believe Dreiser’s story was unique because he put real people and places into the book. In fact, publication was held up as the editors wanted to tone down the many references to well-known landmarks and prominent citizens of both New York and Chicago. Dreiser insisted that most be kept in. His name dropping came from his own experiences as a reporter in both cities. Many of the events occurring in the background of Sister Carrie were ripped from the headlines. At times, this becomes distracting. For instance, we follow Hurstwood’s troubles while he works for the trolley company during a violent strike. These two chapters have a very distinct feeling of being put in after the original story was completed and nothing in these chapters changes the situation he is in prior to this misadventure.
But Dreiser’s use of actual events gave rise to Sister Carrie. In 1886, Dreiser’s sister Emma was “abducted” by L.A. Hopkins, a clerk in a Chicago saloon who stole about $3,500.00 from his employers. While their story differs much from the novel, the runaways were still together years later when Dreiser went to New York and visited them. (So maybe there is a happy ending for the adulterer?)
Written in 1900, Sister Carrie’s writing is stilted and does not translate well to the present. Even in the early 1900’s he was criticized as a poorly skilled writer. While in junior high school, I learned something about the climax of the story occurring near the very end of the story with just a quick wrap-up following it. As far as I can tell the climax of Sister Carrie hits about five chapters before the books ends. Dreiser spends the last sixty pages reinforcing everyone’s position and status without any noticeable change in characters or plot. In other words, it could have been a shorter book.
Despite this, I actually enjoyed reading Sister Carrie. I wound up caring about all the characters and wondering what would happen next. The plot was very believable and I enjoyed most of the little “I was there” details from two of my favorite cities.
I recommend you read Sister Carrie someday even though I can’t say it is a great novel.
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