Literary Critique of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie from 1907 to 2013

After reading Sister Carrie I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. When I broke down the reasons that it did I realized it was because I have known these people in my life. This is the core of my paper. The main character Carrie Meeber, is a young girl that leaves home in a rather ill planned attempt to move to the city and change her life of farm work and small town to one of the big city life. She has a demanding craving for more that doesn’t seem to have anyway of being met. Within my own life I have had to deal with my own “Sister Carrie” as my own sister went through her wild child phase and bolted from home in the Bakersfield area and ran to Orange County for months. She left the family hanging with little to no reports of her goings on, her general health or whether or not she was ever coming home. Noting this, obviously personal information in my final essay seems taboo. Never use “I” within a College English paper was a rule I learned back in my first College English class. I understand this but it cuts into the heart of my comparison.
Reading over the article "Sister Carrie.” A Novel by Theodore Dreiser Review by: Joseph Hornor Coates The North American Review, Vol. 186, No. 623 (Oct., 1907)” (288) the main strength of Dreiser’s work noted by the author, Coates, is that Dreiser was able to truly capture the reality of the situations he was portraying in print, “His people are real people; he compels you to know them as he knows them, to see the scenes amid which they move as he sees them. He shows absolute sincerity, he plays you no tricks; he is rigidly uncompromising, he scorns to tamper with the truth as he knows it, he refuses any subterfuges or weak dallying with what, to him at least, are the crucial facts of life” (288), and now looking back for myself that reality in the writing was far too real for me. Dreiser’s work, though extremely early in his career, was vivid and clear. Although he was awkwardly putting some of the material to paper due to his own personal attachment to the characters inspiration, his own sister, he did so with as much honesty and genuine faith to the story as he could.
Once again I must touch on my own personal life within the relation to the text. I have been cheated on by a long term lover. I came from a broken home where my Mother left my Father for another man. All of these were key aspects of the reality within this text. Dreiser reflected the reality of betrayal and the weakness within the character of many so well that the book was able to turn one, possibly far too weak in emotional meddle for the task of the reading, into a ball of raw emotion that would toss about and flip flop in his sleep after reading the text. Although this made me uncomfortable, it also showed me how well the author connected the reality of the text to the reality around him. Such a challenge is not easily met and rarely is it able to be achieved.
My disagreements with the article are fairly simple. When the articles author states “Mr. Dreiser is concerned with the greater and far more important class, the working-people from whose ranks it is that the upper strata of the future are to inherit character; for in this country, at least, the proletary of to-day begets the leader of to-morrow.” (290) I believe he is dead wrong. Dreiser does not have an agenda within his work. Honestly it seems to be a type of biography or reflection of his sister’s deeds in her youth, whether or not he agrees with those deeds; that inspired him to put to paper. Although I do not believe he meant the work to critique her journey, or to point a finger, or to insult her, I do think that when reading it he had to be reined back in by others in order to stay on track without an agenda. To say that Dreiser believes that the lower class is coming up to inherit as the leaders of tomorrow is just not reflected in the work. In fact, it would be closer to the truth if he had said that the great class difference that was beginning in America at the time was begin reflected as a growing problem within the work. But of course hindsight is 20/20 and this was written prior to the gap becoming outrageously different between the rich and the poor.
That point being made. The novel does reflect many of the problems that now history shows were merely building at the time of its writing. The gilded age of America was only beginning and the great depression was just around the corner and coming on like a freight train. When you are walked through the streets of New York and have to deal with their harsh winters with the character Hurstwood, you can understand how this is just a precursor for something the nation deals with only a few years after. When the Captain is on the street begging for a crowd of homeless men in order to get them all rooms just for the night, and when Hurstwood and many of the same homeless and poor are gathered at the Bakers door at midnight, you can see that there is trouble in the city and it is growing, and like a cancer it does grow and spread.
All of this shows that the working class is hardly represented in the book, at least in a positive way, and definitely does not show them in an upwardly mobile light. When you read the novel the poor remain poor and even the middle class, Hurstwood, live in a tentative comfort. There is something uneasy about their position and if they do not watch how they are treating the money they earn, those around them, or their betters, their comfortable lives can easily slip away from them and in the case of Hurstwood without youth on his side he easily succumbs to despair, depression and eventually suicide becomes a promising escape.
Another of my disagreements with the article is when the author states that “One may not always accept his philosophy fully and without reserve, but he himself believes in it” (288). This cannot be further from the truth in my opinion. Although Dreiser is putting this work to pen honestly and without apology, he does not believe in the philosophy of their actions. You can easily read throughout the text that he is uncomfortable with the actions of Carrie. He often leaves off her actions as just the common flightiness of women, or just the will of women. This leads to an excuse not a reason. He often blames her emotions for her choices, leaving this work as a cautionary tale of people behaving badly, not a model for behavior of civilized people. Further evidence of the author's uneasy dealings with the philosophical nature of the text in the duel endings, one ending being a completion of the story.
Prior to the death of Hurstwood there is a quick look into the current state of all the characters that the author chose to follow in detail. A quick look into Hurstwood’s family now that he is gone, how his wife continued the game of society and married her daughter to a wealthy man that will continue to supply her daughter, and herself in tow, with a manner of life that they desire. We are shown Drouet, still the carefree man that he was throughout the book. We are shown Carrie in her lavish apartment with Lola having achieved her goal of material. Then we are given the death of Hurstwood, a completion to the tale. But, under pressure of others the author continues in order to show a redemption for Carrie, in essence his own sister. This does not show a whole hearted belief in the philosophy of the work.
To conclude, the novel Sister Carrie was realistic to a point that makes the reader a little uncomfortable, it can touch a person’s memories and bring perspective to the time of its writing and to the growing problems that come about just years after its writing and the reflection to reality is strong and unyielding. It is a great work, though it must be handled with care to the reality of the material. This is a cautionary tale, not a hero’s journey. This is a lesson in behaving badly and sadly only one character is rewarded their karmic justice for their selfish actions.
Words: 1479

Bibliography:

Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. [Philadelphia, Pa.]: University of Pennsylvania, 1981. Print.

Coates, Joseph H. ""Sister Carrie." A Novel by Theodore Dreiser Review By: Joseph Hornor Coates." The North American Review 186.623 (1907): 288-91. JSTOR. Web. 18 Mar. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25106012>.