Response to Sister Carrie

I apologize for the fragmented post that is mainly reader response, but that’s all I have right now. I enjoyed the excerpt from Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and found a few moments to be relatable despite a tremendous gap in our historical time frame…and despite the fact that I am not a naïve country girl who moved to find work in Chicago and then became a mistress.  More like a semi-naïve Colorado girl who moved to L.A. for who knows what and became an English grad student. I’m happy with how my narrative has worked out so far, but I’m not sure I can say the same for Carrie.

One of the first moments that I found interesting was the moment the narrator states “When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue.” What I find interesting about this statement is the way it reflects a societal concern over women in public, and in particular, women working in the city, and also how this fear has not changed as much as I would hope. This narrative of the woman who loses her virtue in the city is still pervasive in certain populations (*ahem* my extended family in Texas). My parents’ move to Colorado was fairly heartbreaking for my entire extended Texas family, but when my brother and I both moved to L.A., many members of the family were devastated. Much of the concern did not regard my brother’s move (he moved to pursue a bright career in film) but instead was focused around the “wild child” of the family and her irrational decision to just pick up and move to Sin City. My mother kindly reminded them that Sin City was in fact Las Vegas, and no, my move was not any of their business.  Even now I think there remains a fear of women in the city and how the city corrupts the virtue of good wholesome girls. *sigh*

          Another moment that I found particularly interesting was the moment when Carrie becomes acutely aware of her clothing and the clothing of the people on the train. The narrator informs the reader “this line the individual at her elbow now marked for Carrie. She became conscious of an inequality. Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton tape trimmings, now seemed to her shabby. She felt the worn state of her shoes.” Carrie becoming aware of her clothing reminded me of the Simmel article about the need to manifest individuality in the city and how the increase of brief interactions with the masses, and the decrease of deep and intimate relationships can cause a desire to project individuality through outward appearance (forgive the crude summary. I realize Simmel is much more eloquent).

           I am also interested in the way the gaze functions in this small excerpt. There’s something very intrusive about the stranger’s gaze. Douet tells Carrie “Remember, I’ll be looking till you find your sister.” He doesn’t tell her, “I’ll be looking after you” or something a bit more socially normal. He says, “I will be looking.” I am obviously trying to make some sort of connection with the flanuer and the objectifying male gaze but I can’t articulate some coherent line of thought yet.

There you have it.