Characterization in Sister Carrie Essay -- Sister Carrie Essays

Characterization in infant Carrie The theme of unrequited savor and un saveed ambitions, against a backdrop of a nation being change by industrialism and capitalism, provides the substance of Theodore Dreisers Sister Carrie. During the late 19th Century we get hold three main characters who demonstrate this underlying motif Carrie Meeber, Charles H. Drouet, and George W. Hurstwood. Carrie will fulfill many of her desires for riches and success, but her insatiable appetite will entrust her feeling dissatisfied at the end of the novel and all alone. With jimmy to the two men who most covet her affections, Charles Drouet and George Hurstwood we have a orbit in contrasts. About the lone(prenominal) thing Drouet and Hurstwood have in leafy vegetable is that they both desire Carries love. Both Drouet and Hurstwood love Carrie, but Drouet is a materialist and Hurstwood is a romanticist - a fact that will enable Drouet to survive the passing play of Carrie as Hurstwood commits su icide over the loss. From early in the novel we imagine Drouet established as a representative of the new America - industrialism, capitalism, and nouveau riche successes. When Carrie meets Drouet on the train, his manners and fine dress impress her but they are only a cover for an identity that believes he needs to impress others to be successful. In other words, Drouets manners and attitudes are put on uniform so many new clothes, discarded when they no longer befit his purposes. However, it is exactly these superficial qualities that impress Carrie Meeber, a young woman on her way to Chicago to make her way in the world. Carrie eventually succumbs to the clothes, money, and lodgment Drouet lavishes on her, but it is her desires and his money that unite them ... ... to escape the reality of their lives by means of material pursuits. Hurstwood cannot do so and as a result succumbs to this inability in the face of such heartaches and losses. WORKS CITED Eby, C. V. Cultu ral and historical contexts in Sister Carrie. Univ. of Pennsylvania Library. Available http//www. library.upenn.edu/special/dreiser/scculhist.html, 2001 1-5. Moers, E. The Blizzard. In Sister Carrie. change by Donald Pizer, (2nd edit.). New York W. W. Norton & Co., 1991 525-533. Dreiser, T. Sister Carrie. Edited by Donald Pizer, (2nd edit.). New York W. W. Norton & Co., 1991. Warren, R. P. Sister Carrie. In Sister Carrie. Edited by Donald Pizer, (2nd edit.). New York W. W. Norton & Co., 1991 534-542. 1