- Genre: American, classic, Victorian
- Topics: Domestic, gender roles, industry, realism
Called “the greatest of all American urban novels”,
Dreiser’s Sister Carrie was a good
read and I really enjoyed it. It’s not a “happy” read or a “feel good” read,
but the narrative arc is strong and the writing was fine. (Dreiser has been
criticized by some as having writing that is not sophisticated enough, but I
thought this was fine. After having read some drivel lately, Dreiser was a
pleasure to read. This was very character-driven as a story, and this was
perfect for what was happening throughout the book.)
Sister Carrie is
basically the story of Carrie Meeber, a young girl raised in a small rural town
who moves to Chicago to chase big-city dreams. You’d think that as it was
written during Victorian times, that it might be a heavy-handed morality tale,
but it’s not. People do iffy things, but there is no come-uppance for them or
even redemption for them to change their “evil” ways. Life continues just fine
and in fact, Carrie (she who didn’t fit the Victorian moral code of the time)
even thrives despite her unconventional choices in life. (Probably made some of
the audience get vapors!)
It is this immorality, if you’d like to call it that, which
really irked people when this novel was published. Dreiser has been called one
of the first American writers of the Naturalist/Realist school which shocked
the socks off of the turn-of-the-century American readers and publishers when
it came out.
His storyline was one of the first
published U.S. novels that described a woman being supported by a man to whom
she wasn’t married (and was living with), and then when she leaves that
partner, she hooks up with another man who’s already married and starts to be
supported by him – all with little consequence. When the second partner (who’s
already married) commits an impulsive crime, they both end up on the run and
yet, when they land up in New York for a new life, there is little punishment
for Carrie’s actions. (And you know how the Victorians loved their characters
to have punishment for poor choices/rewarded for good ones idea, especially for
the weaker sex.)
Trying to get Sister
Carrie published at first was tough. A wife of a potential publisher read
the draft and called it “too sordid” for them to work with, and only 450 or so
copies were sold when it was later published. Years after the book was
published, Sinclair Lewis said that the novel “came to housebound and airless
America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us
the first air since Mark Twain and Whitman” (1930 speech.)
And it was a change on many levels and quite shocking to
readers. Nothing bad happens to the woman for her life choices, AND she doesn’t
learn to change her ways (no redemption) AND she works in the shockingly free
world of theater. She’s not that happy, but she’s not punished. Goodness me.
This
sounds like a bit of a depressing novel, and it’s not a happy story by any
means, but it is a good read. I loved how Dreiser portrayed Carrie without
stereotyping her with a Cruella Deville personality. She’s young, ambitious
with little useful work training – what other options were there, really, apart
from working to death in a poorly paid factory job? Who wouldn’t want to
improve their situation if they were in that and didn’t have that many choices
open to them? I, for one, am not going to judge her for that.
However, a lot of the
audience did judge her for that. His two male characters received a different
reception: Drouet (first fake husband that Carrie lived with) and Hurstwood
(second already married lover) don’t seem to suffer much at first when they
invite Carrie into their lives, but in the long term, the latter certainly
does.
His downfall from successful businessman to homeless vagrant is a useful
foil for Dreiser to compare Carrie’s rising theatrical success (slightly clumsy
but works ok), so perhaps the audience was ok with this man receiving
punishment for his immoral ways. Drouet, the first partner, just peels off
gradually with no negative consequences. Interesting how the different genders
are portrayed – Carrie probably made the female readers very nervous when they
read about her…
So – overall, a good read, and as most of it was on-line, it wasn’t too scary
length-wise. I think on-line is the way to read scarily long books from now
on.) I’ll definitely be reading Dreiser’s other classic (An American Tragedy – pub 1925) at some point.
Download Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|
