Carrie Popular Edition of World Classics

Author: Dreiser
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-08-01
Features: Sister Carrie is one of the major works of the renowned American writer Dreiser. Carrie travels to Chicago to visit relatives and meets salesman Drouet on the train. Unable to endure the hard life in the factory, she lives in sin with Drouet and eventually becomes involved with hotel manager Hurstwood. Hurstwood, infatuated with her beauty, embezzles public funds and flees with her to New York, living together as man and wife. By chance, she gets an opportunity to perform on stage and gradually achieves success. Hurstwood, on the other hand, gradually declines. They eventually separate, and Hurstwood later commits suicide. The most captivating part of this novel is Hurstwood's destruction in New York; he transforms from a stable and confident hotel manager into a wretched and utterly contemptible outcast. When William Heinemann published Sister Carrie in England, he believed the novel was primarily about Hurstwood's story and even cut the opening two hundred pages down to eighty-four. However, when Frank Doubleday published the novel in 1900, feeling helpless, he wanted to change the title to Flesh and Spirit, Dreiser insisted on keeping the original title, which was the correct decision. Dreiser believed that Carrie was not only the catalyst for Hurstwood's remarkable destruction but also a profound force in people's lives, and he naturally saw women as having this kind of role. For Dreiser, who was always spiritually alienated and intellectually radical, Carrie represented the need for change and a sexual revolution. At the same time, he regarded her as the center of thoughtful perception.