The Influence of the City on the Development of the Main Characters in Dreiser's Sister Carrie

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Literature language: English abstract: With Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser made his debut as an author in 1900. The novel tells the story of a young country woman Carrie who moves firstly to Chicago and later to New York to forge ahead. Actually Carrie and Hurstwood her husband are the main characters of the novel. But due to its prominence the city can be seen as an additional character which influences the way of life of everything living in it. The novel's action takes place in three different cities: Chicago Montreal and New York. Even though the cities differentiate in some specifics they all reflect the concept of city applied in literature. In Sister Carrie the city can be described as a seducer which influences the expectations of the characters (cf. Hussman 1983: 19) and therefore has a say in the biography of all its residents.