As Carrie acclimates to her new environment after arriving in Chicago, the sounds of the city surround her. The narrator uses auditory imagery and hyperbole to convey the intensity of these early impressions:
The sound of the hammer engaged upon the erection of new structures was everywhere heard.
The auditory imagery in this passage vividly encapsulates the bustling, noisy atmosphere of Chicago during the time. The city was industrializing at an extremely rapid rate. It was pulling in workers from all over the world and quickly becoming one of the biggest centers of production in the United States. The "sound of the hammer" paints a sonic picture of this vibrant, developing atmosphere. The town is alive with activity and is incessantly expanding. This noise of “the hammer” doesn’t refer to one specific tool, but to the concept of all the hammering and construction that surrounds Carrie in her new home.
The phrase "was everywhere heard" is a hyperbole that helps build this soundscape. While it might not be literally true that the hammering was heard everywhere, this exaggeration emphasizes the ubiquity of construction and industry in Chicago at the time. Through this hyperbole, the reader is drawn into the scene of a city in the throes of rapid growth. It also emphasizes Carrie’s innocence and confusion. She’s only recently arrived from her much smaller and more rural hometown. When she walks around Chicago, the ever-present sounds of hammer strikes accompany her attempts to find her own path amidst the cacophony.
