♪Money, Money, Money, Money... MONEY!♪

 In Sister Carrie, it obvious that Carrie abhors the routine of daily life. She wants the finer things in ligr. She wants to dress as nice as possible. She wants to go to the theatre all the time. Her choice in men also... interesting. Now, I'm not saying she's a gold digger, but she's not messing with... any broke gentlemen. That is, I don't think that she would intentionally. From the beginning of the book, Dreiser writes that Carrie brought with her to Chicago "her total outfit (in a small trunk), ... a cheap imitation alligator purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money." (page 1) The reader is not given much background information on Carrie's past other than the possessions from her past that she brought with her. What speaks the most about her character to me is the imitation alligator purse. This says to me that she wants people to think she has the money for the high life, but in reality, she cannot afford a real alligator purse, but merely an imitation. Also, the fact that she did not have but four dollars of spending money with her is astounding. She took less than what she would make in a week at the shoe company with her to Chicago. At the shoe company, she made $4.50 per week. So, she took barely no money with her. This emphasizes to me that she literally started from nothing and worked up. She was led by her fancy for the finer life rather than by reality. She found money by it being given to her rather than her working hard for it. First Drouet buys her clothes and a place, but then she sees an even greater profit through Hurstwood. Then, when he loses everything he has, she loses interest in him. Only after her options are exhausted does she decide to pursue her interest of acting. However, when she finally does achieve spending money, the very thing she was so lustful for, she felt a bigger hole in her heart. Something was still missing. I did not like the ending because of the message it brings. In the beginning, it says "money should be desired, because routine is boring". In the end, it says "Money is not the path to happiness." It seems that no matter how hard the characters of the book tried or did not try to gain happiness, they did not find it. I am depressed.

Desire and Shadows

I had but one jaw dropping moment in the whole of Sister Carrie.  This moment came when Hurstwood deceived Carrie concerning Drouet, dragging her all the way to Montreal, and finally to New York. 

It is strange, this novel, everyone gets what they want.  I find that often life can be like that: you get everything you want, but it is not at all what/how you think it would be or should be.  Carrie achieved fame and fortune but (classically) found it empty.  Drouet continues doing what he always did.  The Hurstwood family went about their ways pretending the father no longer existed; Jessica becomes an expert flirt, while the missus tags along with her daughter and son-and-law (I’m sure they love that).  Hurstwood himself escaped on the immediate consequences of his crime, started over with Carrie, and ultimately failed.  Everything you want and more is in the making of a decision, no?

But Carrie’s position is different.  Indeed, she has it all in meaningless fashion, yet she is aware there is more to life.  A part I found so interesting in Dreiser’s description of Carrie’s dreamy nature was this:

“Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotional nature—that mind that reasons, and the mind that feels.  Of one come the men of actions—generals and statesmen; of the other, the poets and dreams—artists all” (353).

I keep trying to decide if Dreiser favors one over the other, the intellectual or the emotional.  And if he does, that means he is more connected to his characters than I originally thought.  Carrie is an obvious dreamer.  If Dreiser favors the emotional, then he is sympathetic to her; if he favors the intellectual, then he is either indifferent or antagonistic.  In my opinion, indifference to one’s characters is disrespectful as an author; as with people, we must come to a place where we like or dislike/love or hate characters.

  

Characters shadow and imitate reality, and Dresier embodies that in Carrie throughout the novel.  From the start Carrie acts as a chameleon in her surroundings, adjusting herself with each turn of the page.  Dreiser ends the novel acknowledging Carrie’s potential to move out of the emptiness, but I question her subconscious motives.  Women of her track record tend to become the projection of whatever man holds her attention at the time, and Sister Carrie ends with Ames.

I read this novel too fast, and it will take a lot longer for it to really sink it.  But I enjoyed it nonetheless.  In class, perhaps let us discuss how Dreiser uses and writes about contrasts in the novel.  I think this becomes a more acknowledged trend toward the end of the novel; at the very least I noticed it more when he started mentioning it.