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In August 1889, eighteen-year-old Caroline Meeber leaves her small Wisconsin town for Chicago with a little money and a great hunger for fine clothes and a…
Catalogue details
Author
Theodore Dreiser
Category
Novels & Stories
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg
About this book
In August 1889, eighteen-year-old Caroline Meeber leaves her small Wisconsin town for Chicago with a little money and a great hunger for fine clothes and a better life. Work in a shoe factory is exhausting and badly paid, and she drifts into the protection of Drouet, a cheerful travelling salesman, and then of George Hurstwood, the manager of a fashionable saloon, who steals money from his employers and flees with her to New York. As Carrie rises, Hurstwood sinks.
Context and significance
Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945), from a poor German immigrant family in Indiana, published his first novel in 1900, and its publisher barely promoted it, reportedly because Carrie is never punished for her 'sins'. It is now seen as a landmark of American realism, showing people driven by desire and money rather than by morals. Compare a European heroine with similar dreams, Madame Bovary.