Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sister Carrie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Urban Life and Decay
Morality and Instinct
Wealth and Class
Summary
Analysis
In August 1889, 18-year-old Caroline Meeber boards a train bound for Chicago, carrying small belongings and large hopes. Carrie does not seem particularly attached to her hometown, as all it takes is the forward-moving train for “the threads which bound her so lightly to girlhood and home” to be “irretrievably broken.” Carrie is leaving from Columbia City, Wisconsin to join her sister in the city.
The novel opens on a note that is familiar to the English language literary canon: a young woman, on the brink of adulthood, travels to a new place to begin a new life. From this, readers can gather that the novel will most likely be a sort of coming-of-age narrative. As Carrie is traveling from the countryside to a large city, readers can also predict the book will be an urban novel, a work that deals with industrialization, labor, and the like.
Themes
When a young woman leaves home at age 18, the narrator explains, there are only two choices: she either finds a role model who makes her a better person, or she falls to the vices of the city and becomes worse. The narrator considers the city to be a great tempter with “cunning wiles”: it breathes lies into “the unguarded ear” and “relaxes, then weakens, then perverts the simpler human perception.”
It seems that the narrative of young Carrie can only take two turns: either the city will corrupt her, or someone will save her from the city’s corruption. From this, readers can gather that the novel takes a generally negative view of the city, painting it as a sort of tempter and harbinger of corruption.
Themes
Literary Devices
Carrie, “or Sister Carrie, as she had been half affectionately termed by the family,” is the typical example of a middle-class girl: relatively simple, self-interested but not selfish, and carrying the potential to be beautiful. She is a “half-equipped little knight” venturing into the city with “wild dreams of some vague, far-off supremacy, which should make it prey and subject—the proper penitent, grovelling at a woman’s slipper.”
Carrie is an average young woman who seems to have neither damning vices nor redeeming features. Her normalcy coupled with her wild dreams of supremacy shows her inexperience with life. This inexperience, in turn, reinforces the novel as a sort of coming-of-age work. Carrie’s desire for a “prey and subject” demonstrates a deep-seated desire for recognition and power.
Themes
A man approaches Carrie and begins to make polite conversation. He is a traveling salesman, “one whose dress or manners are calculated to elicit the admiration of susceptible young women.” Carrie notices his fashionable dress. The narrator relates that Drouet’s type is actuated by a “keen desire for the feminine” and “an insatiable love of variable pleasure.” He is a sort of dandy. This well-dressed man causes Carrie to notice the shabbiness of her own attire.
Given that a dandy finds it easy to approach Carrie, readers can infer that the young woman gives off an aura of innocence and approachability. The fact that Carrie does not put him off highlights her inexperience with philandering men. Carrie seems especially observant when it comes to matters of dress: the dandy’s fashionable attire forms a favorable impression on her and makes her self-conscious of her own plainness.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Carrie is drawn to the man’s description of the city’s magnificence. By this point, the two are flirting, with “much more passing now than the mere words” they are saying to each other. Carrie and the man, Chas. H. Drouet, exchange names and addresses, and tentatively make plans to meet. Neither Carrie nor Drouet can tell if they made a strong enough impression on the other.
Despite her inexperience, Carrie flirts quite easily with the dandy, suggesting that she is neither meek nor particularly cautious. Drouet and Carrie appear to have a mutual interest in each other; however, neither is forward enough to directly show this interest. Evidently, Carrie is not too innocent to forwardly express her interest in a man.
Themes
Literary Devices
The train approaches Chicago, and Carrie, seeing the marvels of the city, feels renewed interest. After Drouet points out different parts of Chicago, Carrie begins to feel scared about being away from home and “rushing into a great sea of life and endeavor.” The train arrives in Chicago, and Carrie refuses Drouet when he offers to carry her things, saying, “I’d rather you wouldn’t be with me when I meet my sister.” Drouet tells Carrie he will be nearby in case her sister isn’t at the station. The two exchange goodbyes.
Carrie’s fear highlights the fact that she is still young and has not been to anywhere as cosmopolitan as the city. She is, in other words, quite provincial. Carrie’s desire for Drouet to stay behind when meeting her sister shows her awareness that it is not entirely proper for a girl of her station to have formed a relationship with a dandy on a train ride. Readers can infer that Carrie’s sister is a proper sort who might not look kindly upon forward behavior.
Themes
Carrie finds her sister, and immediately realizes that this ordinary-looking woman does not carry the city’s marvels, but “most of the grimness of shift and toil.” Carrie notices the difference between how she feels when she is with Drouet and how she feels when she is with her sister: with Drouet, there was a sense of excitement and direction, while with her sister, there is only the feeling that she is “a lone figure in a tossing, thoughtless sea.”
Carrie displays an attraction towards glamour and a distaste for “the grimness of shift and toil,” before she has even labored herself. There is a certain sort of vanity in Carrie that drives her away from plainness and toward luxury. Carrie’s loneliness in her sister’s presence suggests that the two are not close and have very different mindsets.
Themes
Literary Devices
