Some fly up, others fall.

Luring lights of big cities have always been tempting aim for young and full of dreams and hopes for the better life men.  Attracted by the cunning wiles, they are doomed to face a great number of difficulties to get the desired or to slide into evil’s way sinking in grief and mismatching morals deeds. The book I am going to interpret illustrates one of stories that will never go out of fashion due to their common nature. The book’s title  Sister Carrie is used literary  as it cover’s time span of several years of Carrie’s life and mostly tells about the twists and turns of her life.

A young eighteen-year old girl comes from a provincial town to Chicago to enjoy the facilities of a big city as she hopes. From the very beginning it is told by the author that she is not either clever or talented. Narrow minded and concentrated on nice dresses, food and theatre. Her hopes falls beyond reality as her sister’s family where she boards with is not prosperous enough to live the life Carry has been dreaming about. At first Carry accepts the rules of the game and dive into the steady round of toil, working hard for one fabric and then another. Earned money can’t provide her with everything she needs, so that when a handsome, intelligent(as she thought) and humorous commercial traveler Drouet with whom she got acquainted in the train she came to the city, comes to the scene, Carrie has already disappointed in the way of life she was leading. Justifiably, her fall is accompanied by pricks of conscious, doubts and hesitations but in the end, craving for well-fed life full of amusements wins. She spends next couple of years as Drouet’s mistress until she met Hurstwood, the man older than her, with fine position of a bar manager, stable income, polite and intelligent, handsome and self-confident and…unfortunately married…he attracts Carrie’s attention and almost abducts her by a cunning wile to Canada. He has stolen money from the bar’s safe so they are actually running away from Chicago. But soon he is caught by a private detective and sends the money back. They move to New York where he comes down to a beggar and carry fly up to a famous actress.

A complicated plot of the story consists of several conflicts that can be united into man against morality conflict. I would like to pay greater attention to the most meaningful conflict that took place in Carrie’s life as it was the first step on her way, that was condemned almost by everyone. The day Drouet sponsored her with money to buy a new jacket and shoes and she accepts the gift is a significant milestone of the girl’s life. She is excited and happy to get these beautiful outfits but at the same time she is conscience-stricken. The night that she is considering it over is the climax of her inner struggle of moral principles that she was taught and her desires for prosperous life. “She went over the tangle again and again. She began to be ashamed. The whole situation depressed her.” Tortured by the dreadful feeling of being known as an easy to access she decides to give the money back. “it was wrong to take it. she would go down in the morning and hunt for work”. And indeed she being determined finds strength to tell Drouet about her hesitations and refuses to take money. But instead of being saved she is attacked from another side and offered to change the flat to live with Drouet. She Is not ready for this and doesn’t have a quick response and moreover she likes Drouet who is giving her a helping hand. She agrees and run away from home. Thus the first fall is completed, since this night she has never been that embarrassed, at a loss, and seeking for morals.

Carry is criticized for being too obsessed with the idea of getting money and becoming “a bird of nice feather”, but isn’t it natural to long for enjoyable life without thoughts how to make both ends meet? One more her grief is “changing men and using them to her best advantage”. Well it is a debatable question as at first she is not planning to leave Drouet and hopes to marry him, as he is constantly promising her. Only after having understood the fact that he will never put his promise into reality, she accepts Hurstwood who is dancing attendances on her in the way Drouet never did.  And by the ay decides to break with him when she knows that he is married. The last and the most heavy sin she is imputed is that she leaves Hurstwood when he needs her help. I wonder who is philanthropic enough to provide a coming down man for all his life, bearing his complains and naggings. By the way, Hurstwood is not as holy as he seems to be. Kidnapping Carrie he acts not out of great scarifying love, but out of desire for pleasures. It is not Carrie who uses men, it is men who use Carrie.  And moreover, this man hasn’t done anything for her but teased with prosperous life, deceived and took her to the city where both of them were doomed to hungry existence. Things that are as clear as daylight turn to be not that simple. That’s why I think I like Dreiser. There are nether positive nor negative characters in his books. All of them have grounds to act in the way they act.  

To be frank enough, the book is a very oppressing one as it shows barely the fragility of life. Characters lose and find, go up and down, face problems and find solutions to them. But whatever they commit, there is a slight touch of despair. The book makes think about opportunities and value of choices we make.