Yet, he pursues the other appointments that represent his dream, such as a beautiful woman to adorn his arm and his own home. He frequents the important establishments in town and has befriended many of the right people. He has achieved a certain station in life and wears the clothes to prove it. Drouet seeks his own version of the American Dream. She imagines the elegant clothes she will wear, the exciting places to which she will go, and the fashionable people with whom she will associate, thinking that everyone who lives beyond the boundaries of her Midwestern state has achieved that higher status. Carrie, a poor country girl, arrives in Chicago, filled with the expectations of acquiring the finer things in life. Life is a constant battle fought between the giant armies of frustration and desire.Each of Dreiser’s characters in Sister Carrie search for their own “American Dreams”-the ones offered by a growing and prosperous democratic country.
It is this world in which Carrie ironically becomes a citizen - ironically" because it never seems to yield the rewards and beauty it promises. There is the realistic world of the "reasonable" mind and the imagined world of the "emotional" world, a world described in the novel as "Elf-land," "Dream Land," or "The Kingdom of Greatness." This is the world from which Hurstwood emerges as an "ambassador" to bring Carrie back with him. Perhaps the most important single group of objects is the various rocking chairs upon which Carrie rides to dreamland, beginning in her sister's flat, continuing through the several rooms and apartments where she lives, and culminating in her vast suite in the Waldorf.ĭreiser's symbolism reveals the separate and distinct worlds of Sister Carrie. These comprise the walled and gilded city to which Carrie seeks entrance. The most important patterns of details, in addition to clothing and money, are the theater, hotels, and restaurants. Carrie's sensitivity to details provides the emotional center of the novel. Occasionally, however, he shows a lack of subtlety when he addresses his reader directly to reveal his intention.īy registering carefully Carrie's reaction to specific details, Dreiser shows her moving from her early naive optimism to her final disillusionment and despair. Dreiser generally accomplishes this end through a kind of "incremental repetition" of important details. The author must make the reader aware that the details are important to the meaning. Dreiser's use of symbolic detail permeates the novel, ranging from careful descriptions of dress and adornment to descriptions of great American cities and their surroundings. In this way the symbolic level of the narrative is laid directly over the events and occurrences of the simple story itself. The naturalistic writer presents his theme through symbolic detail.
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