Love is the only thing which brings sense into his life. His high social standing and money do not make Hurstwood happy. Everything in his life goes well up to the moment when he begins to feel bored and develops fondness for young and charming Carrie. In the novel, he represents the idea of unsteadiness of American stability, delusiveness of success and wealth. As soon as Hurstwood goes bankrupt and Carrie receives money and fame in the footlights, she walks out on him immediately.Īn imposing manager of the bar “Fitzgerald and Moy” George Hurstwood is a holder of a considerable money value of forty thousand dollars and a father of a respectable Chicago family.
In her striving for living in comfort Carrie runs into accepting her church wedding to an already married man at its face value but … she behaves in such a way up to the moment when this ceases to be favourable for her. Later she has similar hopes for Hurstwood. At first the girl expects Drouet to marry her. Driven into a corner and facing a dilemma – whether she should return to her parents or continue conquering Chicago – Carrie easily puts up with her new position of a lover, disguising her uncharacteristic unchastity by the hope to correct everything. Being passive and dreamy by nature, the girl worships everything beautiful and lives in the hope of the happiness yet unknown she easily gives herself up to the charms of young travelling salesman Charles Drouet. This is facilitated by unfavourable life circumstances (lack of working experience, hard work at a shoe factory, absence of warm clothes in winter, illness) and the attitude of insensitive relatives who led their ordered life full of work, belt-tightening and small house affairs. Like most Americans, the girl is driven by a single pursuit: to conquer this city, and if it appears impossible to be a stunning success there, then to become its integral part.Ĭarrie was brought up in the spirit of classical moral values, but she soon falls from grace.
The main personage of the novel, Carrie Meeber, having become of age moves to Chicago from a small backward town of Columbia City. In his novel the American journalist (it was this very position that Dreiser began his literary activity from) raised a problem which was classical for the 90-ies of the XIX century in the USA – the problem of realization of ‘the American dream’. In England “Sister Carrie” was accepted more favourably after that, in 1907, it was republished in the USA and enjoyed first local and then global appreciation. In America it was published in an edition of one thousand copies. “Sister Carrie” was rejected as it was considered immoral and discrepant to traditional American values. At first, it did not receive any warm welcome with the public and the critics. Theodore Dreiser’s first novel came out in 1900.
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