Sister Carrie

Born to a low-income family, Carrie Meeber loves acquisition. She studies the hairstyles of the rich women she sees strolling along Broadway; she covets the handsome homes near Lincoln Park; she peruses with care all the furnishings in Mrs. Vale’s townhouse; she is mesmerized by the elegant appointments in the restaurants along Fifth Avenue; and she dreams of jewelry and stylish dresses. The narrator says, “Her mind delighted itself with scenes of luxury and refinement, situations in which she was the cynosure of all eyes, the arbiter of all fates” (110).

Carrie believes that materialism equates to social standing and community respect. Although she accumulates the trappings of wealth she has always desired, she cannot understand her unhappiness. This suggests that Dreiser separates himself from his character’s conspicuous consumerism. Carrie arrives in Chicago “ambitious to gain in material things” (4). The steak dinner and his two crisp ten-dollar bills convince Carrie to trust Charles Drouet. Her embarrassment over Hurstwood’s tiny flats convinces Carrie to leave him.

Ultimately, Carrie is both wealthy and miserable. Once she is established on Broadway and when she “had attained that which in the beginning seemed life’s object…her gowns and carriage, her furniture and bank account” (342), she feels indifferent to their charms and decidedly “lonely” (342).