Duality of Desire: Dreiser's Novel, Sister Carie
Zabria Williams
Kristy Medvetz
English Honor P4
03.04.14
The Duality of Desire in Dreiser's Sister Carrie
First novel by Theodore Dreiser, published in 1900, but was on hold until 1912. Sister Carrie tells the story of a rudderless but pretty small town girl who comes to the big city filled with vague ambitions. She is used by men and uses them in turn to become a successful Broadway actress, while George Hurstwood, the married man who she later gets married to in the has run away with her from Chicago loses his grip on life and descends into beggary and suicide. Sister Carrie was the first masterpiece of the American naturalistic movement in a way that doesn’t punish her for acting like a tart. The book's strengths include a brooding but compassionate view of humanity, a memorable cast of characters, and a compelling narrative line. The emotional disintegration of Hurstwood is a much-praised triumph of psychological analysis. Sister Carrie is a work of pivotal importance in American literature, and it became a model for subsequent American writers of realism. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie was not widely accepted after it was published, although it was not completely withdrawn by its publishers, as some sources say it was. Neither was it received with the harshness that Dreiser reported. For example, the Toledo Blade reported that the book “is a faithful portraiture of the conditions it represents, showing how the tangle of human life is knotted thread by thread” but that it was “too realistic, too somber to be altogether pleasing”. There is also the receipt of sale, Doubleday sent to Dreiser showing that Sister Carrie was not withdrawn from of the shelves, reporting that 456 copies of the 1,008 copies printed were sold.
Sister Carrie evoked different responses from the critics, and although the book did not sell well among the general public, it often received positive reviews.Some of the reason for lack of sales came from a conflict between
Kristy Medvetz
English Honor P4
03.04.14
The Duality of Desire in Dreiser's Sister Carrie
First novel by Theodore Dreiser, published in 1900, but was on hold until 1912. Sister Carrie tells the story of a rudderless but pretty small town girl who comes to the big city filled with vague ambitions. She is used by men and uses them in turn to become a successful Broadway actress, while George Hurstwood, the married man who she later gets married to in the has run away with her from Chicago loses his grip on life and descends into beggary and suicide. Sister Carrie was the first masterpiece of the American naturalistic movement in a way that doesn’t punish her for acting like a tart. The book's strengths include a brooding but compassionate view of humanity, a memorable cast of characters, and a compelling narrative line. The emotional disintegration of Hurstwood is a much-praised triumph of psychological analysis. Sister Carrie is a work of pivotal importance in American literature, and it became a model for subsequent American writers of realism. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie was not widely accepted after it was published, although it was not completely withdrawn by its publishers, as some sources say it was. Neither was it received with the harshness that Dreiser reported. For example, the Toledo Blade reported that the book “is a faithful portraiture of the conditions it represents, showing how the tangle of human life is knotted thread by thread” but that it was “too realistic, too somber to be altogether pleasing”. There is also the receipt of sale, Doubleday sent to Dreiser showing that Sister Carrie was not withdrawn from of the shelves, reporting that 456 copies of the 1,008 copies printed were sold.
Sister Carrie evoked different responses from the critics, and although the book did not sell well among the general public, it often received positive reviews.Some of the reason for lack of sales came from a conflict between