Who Is Sister Carrie Rebel
Although Dreiser makes several generalizations about women at the beginning of the novel, which
might lead the author to be seen as conservative, his empathy for Carrie s position seems to represent
his view on contemporary women. Thus, Sister Carrie is initially described as having an average little
conscience , and being urged into the position of the traditional women (Dreiser 92). However, despite
the fact that she wants to be a consumerist, Carrie can certainly be considered to be a rebel. When the
Hansons tried to transform her personality, her heart revolted as much as when Hurstwood attemped to
narrow her desires (324). Coming to New York with her alleged husband, she, thus, started to have a
few opinions of her own (Dreiser 280). ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Carrie as a character depicts this transformation. At first, she is a model of True Woman, then she
becomes a modern New Woman. She does not want to follow the ideal women were supposed to
follow and, thus, she rebels not only against her husband Hurstwood, but also against society and the
common social and economic discrimination. When Carrie decides to seek a job again, the story turns
and she changes places with Hurstwood, who is now unemployed. This is described as the beginning
of the new order (Dreiser 377) and is the main decisive turning point in the novel. Carrie starts earning
money, covering all of her and Hurstwood s living cost, while he does the grocery shopping. We can
see that Carrie does not understand his unemployment, claiming that [n]o man could go seven months
without finding something if he tried (Dreiser 380). Thus, the novel as a whole demonstrates how this
social and economic rise of the New Women is not only connected but congruent to a certain decline
of the male gender, designated as a crisis of masculinity by historians (Brod, Harry. The Case for Men
s Studies. The Making of Masculinities: The New Men s Studies. Ed. Harry Brod. Boston: Allen
Unwin, 1987, pp. 39 62.). For someone like George Hurstwood, who is a married manager of
Fitzgerald and Moy s, the loss of his ability to maintain his status seems to represent this crisis
accurately. Within this shift, a major change in gender relation follows. Carrie and Hurstwood move
into different social and economic directions, drawing attention to the restructure of Victorian
assumptions regarding male and female understanding. Dreiser metaphorically remarks this: with the
tables turned, she was looking down, rather than up, to her lover (184). As aforementioned, with
Hurstwoods s downfall, Dreiser might want to point out how even rich and successful people happen
to lose all what they have.
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