Sister Carrie 375Hurstwood in New York City. Her relationships
with both of her male protectors resemble marriage
in all practical respects. After Drouet’s original
conquest of Carrie, she thinks “with mournful mis-
givings” about something she has lost, apparently
her virginity, but considers desire itself her excuse:
“The voice of want made answer for her.” Yet, given
that she benefits financially from the arrangement,
one could interpret this desire of hers as primar-
ily aimed at material things. Likewise, during her
period of cohabitation with Hurstwood, she seems
mainly concerned with matters of domestic econ-
omy. Despite the illicit nature of the relationships
and both men’s obvious craving for her, from Carrie’s
own point of view, all interaction is peculiarly asex-
ual. She is only vaguely conscious of her own desir-
ability, which merely adds to her innocent appeal
from the male perspective. Female sexual desire,
however, remains a mystery: Carrie’s own passions
are consistently directed at social and material
achievement. At the time of the novel’s publication,
the taboo of female sexuality was being unraveled by
other American texts such as Kate Chopin’s The
awakeninG (1899), but in Sister Carrie lust is still
largely a property of the male brain.
Significantly, while initially living with her sis-
ter’s family in Chicago, Carrie has an unfortunate
habit of standing at the doorway of the building, as
if on display. Throughout the story, there are impli-
cations of the value of sexuality as a type of practical
currency; in effect, Carrie sells herself to Drouet for
nice clothes and a place to live. This arrangement,
just like her later union with Hurstwood, suggests
a simple exchange in which she receives a liveli-
hood and he intimacy. Her prolonged attempts to
find an acting role on Broadway also subtly hint at
prostitution: Hurstwood is “dead to the horror of ”
her plan to “try some of the managers” of theater
companies directly. Carrie’s good looks finally win
her a job through a man “who judged women as
another would horseflesh.” Thus, sexual desirability
is shown to serve as raw material for society’s inher-
ent economies, a significant factor in the equations
of survival in the urban jungle. In time, Carrie’s
ascent suggests, sex appeal is likely to transform into
wealth, fame, and social standing.
Although Hurstwood’s desire for Carrie wanes
after financial hardship sets in, the shared bed
remains an important symbol. Her decision to start
sleeping alone in a separate room represents the
beginning of the end, “a grim blow” to him, mark-
ing the final loss of his power and influence over
her. Here and elsewhere, focusing on sexuality as
one of the determining factors of human existence,
Dreiser’s novel emphasizes that people are animals
of flesh and blood, conditioned by biology as much
as by social demands.
Markku SamelasOcial class in Sister Carrie
Carrie Meeber, the title character of Theodore
Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie (1900), has a natural
instinct for observing the outward signs of social
class. She decides to ignore the lower-class boys and
girls at the Chicago factory where she starts work-
ing after her arrival in the city, for “there was some-
thing hard and low about it all.” Subsequently, she
largely chooses her male companions—first Charles
Drouet, then George Hurstwood—by the promise
of personal advance that they represent. The story
barely distinguishes between wealth and class; in the
long run, money brings about high social standing.
Conversely, status also functions as a type of capital:
something that ensures one’s ability to bargain.
Throughout the novel, outward material clues
are used to indicate someone’s class status. This is
also why characters pay so much attention to surface
appearances. The urban individuals portrayed in
the text seem to assume that the right choices as a
consumer—the right clothes, jewelry, shoes, interior
furnishings, linen, and so forth—eventually have a
positive effect on one’s position in society’s hierar-
chies. Drouet, for example, also dreaming of social
ascent, “only craved the best, as his mind conceived
it.” Similarly, Hurstwood elevates his own reputation
and social rank by emphasizing his cultivated taste
in cigars and alcohol. His smoothness of manner has
helped to raise him to “our great American upper
class—the first grade below the luxuriously rich.”
For Carrie, who has instinctively realized how
materialistic society works, seeing expensive mer-
chandise is a life-altering experience. She admires
Drouet, whose “rings almost spoke” to her; the feel