The Character of Carrie
温州师范学院外语系98英本（2）班 尹宜宜
Abstrct: This article depicts characters of Carrie, who rised from the bottom
stratum to the top stratum. It also shows the background and summery of the novel
Sister Carrie, thus make people deeply understand the novel and the character
of Carrie.
key words: character Carrie
Summery:
Sister Carrie tells the story of two characters: Carrie Meeble, an ordinary girl
who rises from a low-paid wage earner to a high-paid actress, and George Hurstwood,
a member of the upper middle class who falls from his comfortable lifestyle to
a life on the streets. Neither Carrie nor Hurstood earn their fates through virtue
or vice, but rather through random circumstance. Their successes and failures
have no moral value; this stance marks Sister Carrie as a departure from the conventional
literature of the period.
Background
Sister Carrie took place in two big cities which were the centers of politics
and economy-----Chicago, a city of promise, luck, rise and New York, a city of
lies, fall, impersonal isolation of walled city where surviving is much more difficult
than in Chicago. During that period of time, the capitalism was speeding up. As
the center of agriculture and trade, finance and culture, Chicago and New York
best represented the overall characteristics of American capitalism.
As the writer says "Oh, the tangle of human life! How dimly as yet we see.
Here was Carrie, in the beginning poor, unsophisticated, emotional; responding
with desire to everything most lovely in life, yet finding herself turned as by
a wall. Laws to say: " Be allured, if you will, by everything lovely, but
draw not nigh unless by righteousness." Convention to say: " You shall
not better your situation save by honest labor." If honest labor be unremunerative
and difficult to endure; if it be the long , long road which never reaches beauty,
but wearies the feet and the heart; if the drag to follow beauty he such that
one abandons the admired way, taking rather the despised path leading to her dreams
quickly, who shall cast the first stone? Not evil, but longing for that which
is better, more often directs the steps of the erring. Not evil, but goodness
more often allures the feeling mind unused to reason."
Although Carrie does not leave a very "sweet taste" in the readers'
mouth, I like her. Though her reactions would represent a woman with high moral
qualities, but as for the society, it was not her choice. It was the only way
to live and survive.
Bibliography:
1.Sister Carrie 潘绍中 商务印书馆
2.《50部美国小说名著评析》 虞建
3.《德莱塞 》 毛信德
