Review - Sister Carrie

Sister Carrie: The Unexpurgated Edition by Theodore Dreiser

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sister Carrie, written at the turn of the 20th century and considered one of the "great American novels," also has an infamous history of censorship which is fascinating in its own right. I chose to read the free online version of the restored Pennsylvania edition. I understand that the "unexpurgated edition" is based off of that one.

On the surface, the novel is the story of Caroline Meeber, who moves from rural Wisconsin to Chicago in hopes of seeking her fortune. Unhappy with her work prospects due to her lack of experience and the less-than-enthusiastic welcome she gets from her sister and brother-in-law, Carrie is tempted away from a hand-to-mouth existence by Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman who buys her nice clothes and gets her to live with him. Eventually she realizes the shallowness of Drouet's personality and casts in her lot with George Hurstwood, a (unbeknownst to her) married man. This sets them on a path that leads to Carrie's stardom as an actress and Hurstwood's very steep downfall.

The book is dense and not easy to get through, but in the end I did like it. There are two things in particular that I noticed:

1. It is a major commentary on American society. Our society is based around the idea that if we could just have more money, fame, a different lover, or a bigger place to live, we would be happier. Ultimately, Carrie is not happy with her money and fame, and chasing her eventually leads Hurstwood to indifference and suicide. Drouet continues to be his oblivious self, but arguably he is never satisfied either--he can never have meaningful relationships with anyone. This passage in Chapter 49 in which Carrie is talking with Bob Ames, a cousin of her friend Mrs. Vance, sums up this thesis:


"Your happiness is within yourself wholly if you will only believe it," he went on. "When I was quite young I felt as if I were ill-used because other boys were dressed better than I was, were more sprightly with the girls than I, and I grieved and grieved, but now I'm over that. I have found out that everyone is more or less dissatisfied. No one has exactly what his heart wishes."

"Not anybody?" she asked.

"No," he said.

Carrie looked wistfully away.

"It comes down to this," he went on. "If you have powers, cultivate them. The work of doing it will bring you as much satisfaction as you will ever get. The huzzas of the public don't mean anything. That's the aftermath--you've been paid and satisfied if you are not selfish and greedy long before that reaches you."


2. It is not necessarily a work about morality. The author, Dreiser, does mention evil in it, but his characters are not deliberately evil--they suffer because they are driven by their whims and lack understanding of what their actions do to those around them. One might argue anyway that this is a better definition of sin than the overly simplistic list of "lying/cheating/stealing." But I still don't think Dreiser was trying to teach morality in this story--just depict in a naturalistic way that people tend to do what's in their own best interests and that "fate" can lead them in different directions. He sums this up in a rather heavy-handed passage:


Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden, flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole delight. They have no feeling that any result which might flow from their action should concern them. They have no conception of the necessity of a well-organized society wherein all shall accept a certain quota of responsibility and all realize a reasonable amount of happiness. They think only of themselves because they have not yet been taught to think of society. For them pain and necessity are the great taskmasters. Laws are but the fences which circumscribe the sphere of their operations. When, after error, pain falls as a lash, they do not comprehend that their suffering is due to misbehavior. Many such an individual is so lashed by necessity and law that he falls fainting to the ground, dies hungry in the gutter or rotting in the jail and it never once flashes across his mind that he has been lashed only in so far as he has persisted in attempting to trespass the boundaries which necessity sets. A prisoner of fate, held enchained for his own delight, he does not know that the walls are tall, that the sentinels of life are forever pacing, musket in hand. He cannot perceive that all joy is within and not without. He must be for scaling the bounds of society, for overpowering the sentinel. When we hear the cries of the individual strung up by the thumbs, when we hear the ominous shot which marks the end of another victim who has thought to break loose, we may be sure that in another instance life has been misunderstood--we may be sure that society has been struggled against until death alone would stop the individual from contention and evil.


From what I hear, the original edited edition of the book removed most of the philosophy from it, made Carrie a mindless, untalented fool, and removed most of the sexual references (which I had trouble detecting anyway, but I guess by early 20th century standards they would have been blatant). Carrie doesn't fret over moving in with Drouet, Drouet doesn't pursue other ladies while living with her, and Hurstwood doesn't frequent prostitutes before he leaves his wife. In other words, the characters were significantly changed.

I enjoyed this book for the depth and the tragedy of it, but it was a very heavy read. I can see after reading the historical notes included on the website that the restored edition is superior to what was originally published and probably closer to what Dreiser intended, although I would have switched the final two chapters--49 reads like an ending, and 50 like an afterthought.

And now, my only remaining question is... whatever happened to Carrie's parents? She goes to live with her sister in Chicago, but I don't remember the book even once mentioning her contacting her parents, thinking about them, or what they thought of her leaving. In fact, I don't think it mentions her parents at all. Either she had an awful relationship with them, or she was just so self-absorbed that she didn't care if her mother was worried sick about her.


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