Sister Carrie

Theater emerges as a critical element of Carrie’s evolution. She finds success on Broadway and attends the theater regularly. Using any of the four plays specifically mentioned in the novel, discuss how that play and its themes work with the novel’s themes.

Research the definition of a traditional tragic hero. Which character, Carrie or Hurstwood, better fits that definition?

Highlight the moments in the novel in which the narrative voiceover, presumably belonging to Dreiser, interjects his own opinion on what is happening. Because that commentary impacts the reading of the events and the characters, would the novel be better off without those moments? What is added by these interjections?

The novel plays like a dark variation on the American Dream. Using the template for the American Dream novels, the wildly popular Horatio Alger novels of the 1870’s-1890s, assess how Carrie’s rise to riches critiques the American Dream.

Research the history of American literary naturalism and then apply its principles to the novel’s controversial expose of love, sex, and marriage. Is love possible in a naturalist novel?

Prepare a study of the novel’s presentation of gender. Using Drouet, Hurstwood, and Bob Ames, describe how the novel defines power. Because in Dreiser’s time, power was essentially a masculine trait, which one these men embodies power?

Who or what causes Hurstwood’s death by suicide? Examine his relationships, his business acumen, the circumstances of the economic collapse that hit New York, and, of course, Carrie and her rise to stardom.

Assess Dreiser’s writing and research critical responses to his prose. Does Dreiser’s writing style—which includes overly long sentences and a need to intrude with commentary—interfere? How does Dreiser’s writing style play to a 21st-century reader?