Sister Carrie

by Theodore Dreiser and Theodore Drieser

Book Overview

"When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse."

With Sister Carrie, first published in 1900, Theodore Dreiser transformed the conventional "fallen woman" story into a genuinely innovative and powerful work of fiction. As he hurled his impressionable midwestern heroine into the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140188282
• ISBN13: 9780140188288
• Release Date: August 1994
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

As relevant today as it was back in 1900, a must read that really makes you think!

Once you get the rhythm of his writing style and realize 1st person point of view jumps from one character to the other rather fluidly and the order of wording comes somewhat like reading verbatim translations of a foreign language, it is a fast read. The story and characters just make you want to learn more and surprising to me was I wasn't able to guess everything that was going to happen next. His insight into human thoughts and motivations, insecurities, short comings, American consumerism, competitive nature and longing for status - I still can't get over it was written in 1900! Carrie for her lack of life experience and immaturity had such great insight to what she was feeling or lack there of feeling that I couldn't help to feel a connection with my youth and feeling those same thoughts. How you feel indebted and/or feel you should love someone but just don't. Additionally the men in the book all had ulterior motives of some sort and overall all the main characters, I classify as being selfish but not unlikeable. I really didn't know what to expect when I decided to read this and now I will go on to read his Desire Trilogy and An American Tragedy and probably many more since I'm truly hooked on Dreiser's ability to describe humans the way he does.

Sea of problems for all--no one wins.

Dreiser was contemporary of Edith Wharton; she wrote of upper classes in which she traveled. Dreiser wrote of lower, working classes. EACH class has same issues--personal, societal, psychological. I now have Sister Carrie for my personal library and will re-read many times anew.

As advertised

The book arrived in a timely manner in new/like new condition, exactly as advertised. I would use this vendor again. Thanks.

History Repeats Itself

Here is a snapshot, written by a journalist, of Chicago and New York of 110 years ago. Dreiser, according to the excellent background notes in this Norton edition, had never read "naturalist" novels before he wrote this one, but had been heavily influenced by Balzac. What we have here is social and political messages delivered in the context of the life of a young, idealistic woman who comes to Chicago to escape the boredom of a small town and to make her way in the world. I'm reminded of the book, Devil in the White City, and how it mentions all the young women who flocked to Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s and were in awe of that booming city's majesty and bustle and life. What Carrie finds is utter indifference and dullness until a man sets her up in a "love nest." What a scandal! Soon Carrie grows weary of this guy and is taken with the true tragic figure in this story, a successful married man named Hurstwood. Hurstwood falls in love with Carrie and blows his whole life up for that love. All of this is based on a true story of Dreiser's own sister, we learn from the background notes, but Dreiser has embellished this squalid little tale to give us the demise of a man in minute and realistic detail, all the while commenting on the meaning of success, material well being, and what happiness is all about. This would all be trite if it weren't framed in journalistic realism. Carrie ends up a smashing "success" in the theater, but never finds true contentment. Question: What is the good life? Answer: It comes from internal sources, not external materialistic ones. But money, nevertheless, helps along the way to give you the leisure time to even contemplate this question. Dreiser doesn't seem to address this. The corrosive depression that Hurstwood suffers is hard to take, but the scenes of old New York hark to today's downtown New York, south of 34th Street, where you can still see the buildings Dreiser describes, and you can still see the hard-luck people as well. This is a unique American novel, well worth the time. This edition is also well worth the wealth of information it provides.

The Heights of Naturalism

It is no mystery why Frank Norris praised to high heaven Theodore Dreiser's 1900 novel "Sister Carrie." Norris, one of America's great naturalist writers, saw in Dreiser's tale about a young woman on the make a reflection of the same bleak vistas he wrote about in "Vandover and the Brute," "The Octopus," and "McTeague." When Dreiser submitted his book for publication, it was Norris who read the book and made a glowing recommendation to the publisher. There were immense problems with "Sister Carrie" from that point forward: the wife of the publisher hated the story and worked hard behind the scenes to prevent its release. With a contract already signed, Dreiser's book did become a reality but the publishing house refused to support it with any marketing. The story languished for years in a paper limbo before finally emerging to great success and acclaim. Thank goodness it did because this may be one of the most powerful books ever written about social climbing and the perils of bad morals. Dreiser went on to publish more novels (American Tragedy, The Financier) before dropping out of the literary scene and converting to communism before his death in 1945."Sister Carrie" doesn't promise much at the beginning. In fact, this is yet another story about a rural person arriving in the big city seeking fame and fortune. In this case, it is Carrie Meeber, a young woman moving to Chicago to live with her sister and her husband while she tries to find work. Carrie quickly discovers big city life is tough; her sister's home life bores her to death, the work she finds in a shoe factory is pure drudgery, and she doesn't have enough money to buy decent clothes because she has to pay her sister four dollars a week for rent. Carrie hates her base co-workers and spends most of her free time watching people pass on the street outside of her sister's apartment. When Carrie loses her job after an illness, it looks like she will have to return home to Columbia City and forget about her dreams in Chicago.Enter George Drouet, a semi-successful salesman with a voracious appetite for the ladies. George finagled Carrie's address when he met her on the train into Chicago, and now the two meet again by chance. The results of this meeting shape the rest of the book. Carrie abandons her sister's lodgings and becomes "kept" by George. It is during this period that Carrie meets George Hurstwood, the wealthy manager of a fancy Chicago tavern and friend of Drouet. Through a series of misunderstandings about the marriage status of Carrie and Hurstwood, and serious lapses in moral judgments, Hurstwood and Carrie move on to bigger and better things in New York City. It is at this point that Norris must have began enthusing, for Dreiser embarks on a harrowing tour through the destruction of a human being's body and soul. Just when you think a person could sink no lower, Dreiser yanks you back to reality and illustrates for you just how bad things can get before the inevitable occurs.

Better than I expected

I sometimes fear that novels heralded as "classics" may have been great in their time, but no longer have as much wallop. That was my prejudice approaching "Sister Carrie." I'd read "An American Tragedy" years ago and was impressed, though not as much as I'd been led to believe. Thus, I wondered whether Dreiser's "second most famous" novel would be worth the effort. It was. Although firmly set in its time, it is not dated, and the book moves briskly from start to finish. The characters are well drawn, and I found myself drawn into their stories and the choices they made, with the consequences laid out as the novel progresses. Dreiser manages to convey the gritty reality of living in Chicago and New York at the turn of the last century, with the contrasts between wealth and poverty so pronounced. His attention to detail makes the scenes come alive, and he tells the story without being didactic or preachy. For example, there is an episode involving a streetcar strike, which the author tells in a way that makes clear his own political views, yet those views are not crammed down the reader's throat. This one is worth the effort.

Determinism at work: Carrie rises; Hurstwood falls

Dreiser's Sister Carrie is an urban novel. A country girl comes to the city, ends up with a slick saleman as a kept woman, but runs off with a bar manager to New York where she finds fame as an actress. Her bar manager husband falls on hard times and kills himself. Carrie's fortunes rise as Hurstwood's falls. The characters operate in the world of the city with its mystical pull. Their decisions and some chance events help guide along the plot, but this is a world of survival of the fittest. Carrie turns out to be fit, while Hurstwood does not. There are undertones of Darwin's theories. Dreiser himself occasionally appears as a voice in the work separate from the narrator and the characters. The Norton Critical Edition contains useful reference works at the back and a bibliography helpful for starting research.