(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Essay #31: Sister Carrie (1900), by Theodore Dreiser

The story in a nutshell:
One of the last Victorian-style morality tales to make a big splash, Theodore Dreiser's 1900 Sister Carrie tells the story of late teen and rural Wisconsinite Caroline Meeber, who at the beginning of the novel moves to bustling post-Fire Chicago to start making a name for herself, staying at first with her sister Minnie and her dour Swedish husband over in the city's blue-collar west side. But alas, life in the pre-workers-rights Windy City is not exactly the bed of roses she thought it would be, with Carrie finding herself slaving away in dangerous sweatshops for almost no pay on the rare occasions she can find any work at all, becoming more afraid each day of turning into the hard, humorless housewife her older sister has become; so when she starts receiving gifts and attention from local middle-class playboy Charles Drouet, Carrie jumps at the chance, eventually even agreeing to live with him and accept an allowance even though Drouet is in not much of a mood to marry (one of the many "shocking" details that got this book banned when it first came out).

Eventually, though, Carrie's charms become too tempting for Drouet's acquaintance George Hurstwood, a married retail manager living a comfortable existence up in Lincoln Park, who especially after watching Carrie's unexpectedly successful performance in a community play starts falling in love with her, eventually convincing her to leave Drouet on the promise that he will instead do the right thing and marry her (conveniently of course omitting the fact that he is already married and with children). Through a series of implausible plot developments, then (easy money stolen on a whim one night while drunk, flight from the law, a return of the money but subsequent social disgrace), the couple find themselves in 1890s New York, trying to resume a comfortable domestic life but with this becoming more and more difficult, due to the current recession and Hurstwood's lack of business contacts in this cold east-coast city. It's at this point that the plot essentially splits into two, as we watch Hurstwood's rather spectacular fall into destitution (the spending of his reserves, his stint as a train-conductor scab during a violent union strike, his eventual descent into homeless vagrancy), even as Carrie's fortunes improve just as dramatically, eventually leaving Hurstwood for a rising career on Broadway, the book ending with her rich and famous but still unhappy, and still unsure of what she wants out of life in the first place.

The argument for it being a classic:
The main reason this book should be considered a classic, argue its fans, is for the groundwork it laid for the literature that came right after it; because even though it was published right on the tail end of the Victorian Age, it in fact contains many of the seeds that would become the trademarks of Modernism a mere two decades later, things like an embrace of moral relativism and more prurient subject matter, not to mention a much more naturalistic writing style. In fact, it's no coincidence that Dreiser is considered one of the founders of the Naturalist school of literary thought (best typified anymore by European author Emile Zola, a writer Dreiser is often compared to), a movement similar to the Realism of Henry James and Edith Wharton of the same time period, in that both attempted to strip fiction of the flowery, overwritten purple prose so indicative of the Victorian Era. If not for the bold stylistic experiments of people like Dreiser, his fans argue, we would've never had the more perfected stylings of people like Henry Miller or William Faulkner just one generation later; and if not for his embrace of more modern subject matter (because let's never forget, this was one of the very first American novels to become known precisely for its sordid content and subsequent censorship), it would've never been possible for F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway to write their truly transgressive books a mere twenty years later.

The argument against:
Ironically, critics of this book argue nearly the exact opposite of its fans: that despite it being written a mere two decades before the explosive birth of Modernism, it remains a badly dated relic of Victorianism, not a harbinger of things to come but a perfect example of the kind of tripe the Modernists were precisely railing against. And indeed, no matter what you think of Dreiser's appropriate place in history, it's hard to deny that his actual prose is awfully heavy-handed; despite his embrace of such modern concepts as unmarried couples "living in sin" and that some women might actually be better off as entertainment-industry floozies, the actual writing found in Sister Carrie is riddled with the exact kind of ponderous, directly-talking-to-the-audience nonsense that makes up the worst of Victorian literature, the kind of Bible-quoting finger wagging that we now cite when making fun of the genre. There's a very good reason that Dreiser was such a polarizing figure during his own lifetime, with conservative professors extolling his work and young rabble-rousers thumbing their noses at it; and that's because, critics argue, Dreiser was the last gasp of a form of the arts violently killed off during the first half of the 20th century, making him merely a minor footnote in history whether one is discussing Romanticism or Modernism.

My verdict:
So before anything else, let me make it clear what a delight this book was from a purely historical standpoint, and especially as a fellow Chicagoan; his description of how chaotic and exciting the Loop is on a Monday morning, for example, is so spot-on perfect that it could've literally been written yesterday, while his description of a lonely Garfield Park existing out in the middle of the wilderness, nothing around it except for a series of dirt roads and an occasional farmhouse, will be enough to make most locals' hearts flutter in nostalgic wonder. But that said, Sister Carrie may be the best example yet of one of the surprising conclusions I've discovered while writing this "CCLaP 100" essay series -- of just how relative and transitory our entire definition of "literary classic" actually is, given that the term is supposed to denote books that have a timeless quality. Because the fact of the matter is that throughout the entire first half of the 20th century, Dresier was breathlessly revered by the academic community in the same way they currently fawn over, say, John Updike, and in fact it's rare to find someone over the age of 60 these days who wasn't forced to read one of Dreiser's books back in high school or college themselves (usually An American Tragedy, his most famous).

The reason, then, that in the early 2000s he is only known anymore by the most hardcore book-lovers out there is because what his critics claim is sadly but undeniably true: that although to Modernist eyes in the '50s and '60s Dreiser seemed merely stuffy and dated, to our own Postmodernist eyes his work is nearly unreadable, the exact kind of 19th-century fussy finery that 20th-century literature stamped out once and for all. It's nearly impossible in fact to read Sister Carrie anymore strictly for pleasure, with for example this book's listing at Goodreads littered with nightmarish accounts of people trying dozens of times to get through it, just to have the book disintegrate into pieces from the number of times they frustratingly threw it against the wall; like I said, although it was fascinating from a bibliophilic standpoint, and indeed did pave the way for the Modernist stories that came after it, it is in absolutely no way able to hold its own anymore as a simple tale to be enjoyed in a simple way. It's a perfect example of an argument I've been making more and more in this essay series, that the determination of whether or not a book is a "classic" is a much slippier notion than most of us realize; and that's why, although I myself personally enjoyed it, I have absolutely no hesitation in coming down on the "no" side of the classic question today.

Is it a classic? No ( )

This classic first novel by Theodore Dreiser tells the unlikely rags to riches tale of Carrie Meeber. But unlike the Horatio Alger tales, this is an anti-morality tale. Carrie comes to the big city, Chicago, to make a living under the supervision of her older sister and her husband. Quickly, however, Carrie attracts the attention of a playboy suitor, who begins providing for her.

While under his attention, Carrie crosses path with an even more well-to-do man who becomes infatuated with her, despite having a wife and daughter. After a while, he convinces Carrie to come away with him to the even larger city, New York, where they live as husband and wife, though they are not. However, this man left Chicago under dubious circumstances (he was guilty of theft from his employer), and he is unable to secure adequate employment in New York.

Over time, Carrie discovers that she does not like her limited life and begins to look for work opportunities in the theater. She gains employment, based on her appearance, and gradually becomes a better known actress. At the same time, her supposed husband becomes stuck in unemployment and idleness.

Throughout, morality plays little role in what happens. Carrie is successful, despite living a less than honorable lifestyle. Her compatriot falls completely from grace, in apparent disproportion to his crimes. Such moral ambiguity (though it is still clear Dreiser affirms the contemporary view of the city as an inherently corrupt place) was radical and abrasive at the time "Sister Carrie" was published, and is by far the most notable part of the book.

Read over a century later, the tale is not nearly so bracing as it must have originally been. Instead, some of the novels flaws (which would have been mostly overlooked because of its scandalous narrative) are more apparent. Dreiser has an ear for the language and lifestyle of the city, and his words are powerful. But sometimes his description becomes cumbersome and intrusive. Still, a classic American novel. ( )

Sister Carrie is a treatise on naturalism-- heavy laden with the philosophy that we are slaves to our individual natures and cannot escape the fates to which they lead us. Although I do not agree with Dreiser's premise, I did find the book extremely thought provoking both from a cultural and personal standpoint. The characters are well-developed, but I found none of them particularly sympathetic and their actions (or lack of decision and actions) frustrating. The overall mood of the story is one of gloom, despair, and utter hopelessness (so don't read it in Winter). However, Dreiser does a masterful job of showing step by tiny step the process of change in people and relationships. His understanding of the female psyche-- particularly the glamour-loving, semi-greedy type-- is exceptionally astute. I'm not sure why he insists on making sentences as complex as humanly possible by dangling participles every which way-- but I eventually got used to his writing style and read the second half of the book much faster the first half.

This is a long dense book that has to be savored slowly, but if you like Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), The Winter of our Discontent (Steinbeck), and House of Mirth (Wharton) then you might enjoy Sister Carrie too. ( )

Buddha teaches that the suffering we experience in life comes from desire. "Sister Carrie" expresses and reinforces this truth with such singleness of purpose that it becomes ponderous, a drag. This book holds its place in the American canon because it broke the shocking new ground of realism when dealing with the callous disregard with which some men treat impressionable young women. The book also casts its unblinking eye on our material culture and its concomitant status-seeking.

But principally and without question, Dreiser gives us the emptiness of our daily urges, the self-defeating nature of vanity, and pages and pages of glittering emptiness. The long, slow decay of Hurstwood, the man who forces Carrie to join him when he leaves Chicago on the lam, takes up the lion's share of the book's second half and grinds the reader under its ever-burgeoning weight. There is something unrealistic and difficult to accept about Hurstwood's undoing.

Dreiser is unblinking and pioneering, but also plodding and didactic. It reveals a great deal about the time it represents and the audience it addresses, but it seems clear to me that there are more pleasant and efficient ways of learning about these things. ( )

Sister Carrie is one of a specific handful of American novels that I learned about in school, but (until now) never actually read. Along with those of Upton Sinclair, H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Edward Bellamy and to a certain extent Stephen Crane, the works of Theodore Dreiser were always presented to me as more important to history than interesting as literature - not exactly the kind of ringing endorsement that inspires a person to run out and buy a book today. These authors were exposing social ills and introducing literary naturalism; they were unafraid to confront the American public with previously-taboo topics like the lives of prostitutes, or corrupt business interests. But lord, implied my high-school textbooks, were they ever dry and boring. Even in English classes, these authors were lauded mainly for paving the way for those writing after them, who took the social freedoms they pioneered and added a livelier prose style and a more compelling cast of characters. Recently, thinking about everything ELSE my high-school textbooks got wrong, I began to wonder if this generation of authors are really as unreadable as all that, and figured I should do my own bit of experimentation. Sister Carrie was my first foray into this early-20th-century American naturalist enclave, and it was an enlightening journey.

First of all, let me say that I can understand why Dreiser has been neglected. I would describe his prose as "utilitarian": it gets the job done, but doesn't involve any pyrotechnics. With the likes of Hemingway and Welty bursting onto the American scene a few short decades later, I can see why Dreiser's businesslike approach came to seem outdated and clunky. It's an odd, transitional-seeming style: more journalistic and less ornamented than your purple Victorian prose, yet not so aggressively streamlined or giddily experimental as the work of many Modernists.

The place smelled of the oil of the machines and the new leather - a combination which, added to the stale odours of the building, was not pleasant even in cold weather. The floor, though regularly swept every evening, presented a littered surface. Not the slightest provision had been made for the comfort of the employees, the idea being that something was gained by giving them as little and making the work as hard and unremunerative as possible. What we know of footrests, swivel-back chairs, dining-rooms for the girls, clean aprons and curling irons supplied free, and a decent cloak room, were unthought-of. The washrooms were disagreeable, crude, if not foul places, and the whole atmosphere was sordid.

(I chose this passage because it gives a fair idea of Dreiser's style, but also because I think it's hilarious that "clean aprons and curling irons supplied free" would be an item on the agenda for workers' rights. Where have my free curling irons been all these years of working, I'd like to know?)

I can also understand the criticism of Dreiser's characters for being undeveloped or unsympathetic, but I think he's actually making a conscious choice here: his super-naturalistic narrative method, combined with some cynicism about people rationalizing their own laziness, means that this is more a novel about circumstances acting on players than about individuals taking control of their own destinies. The young protagonist, Carrie, moves to the big city and quickly becomes overwhelmed with how hard a working-class woman has to labor in order to earn her living. When she's presented with the opportunity of being taken care of by a man and living with him out of wedlock, she drifts into it without ever taking decisive action. Similarly, Drouet (the young man) never plans to lure Carrie into a life of sin; he just finds it distasteful to be tied down in a real marriage, and so puts off the wedding indefinitely. The other characters drift similarly through their lives, finding reasons not to disrupt the momentum that has built up around them. I think Dreiser, like many socially- or socialist-minded writers, is using Carrie, Drouet and Hurstwood as Everyman characters; his book is more a portrait of the material conditions and social forces in turn-of-the-century Chicago and New York than of particular individuals within those cities.

I wrote in my thoughts on The Good Earth that this universalizing approach is not my favorite novelistic technique; I tend to prefer stories with highly-individualized characters and distinctive narrative voices, not to mention innovative, well-crafted prose. Nevertheless, it's a tribute to Dreiser's storytelling ability that I had a hard time putting Sister Carrie down. He uses the tools at his disposal in compelling, sometimes surprising ways: one of my favorites was the way in which he played the characters off each other, enlisting the reader's sympathy first for one, then for another. All three of the main characters act very poorly at certain points, and all three fall prey to the lure of habit and drift along in their unsatisfactory lives for painfully long periods before they are finally spurred to make some kind of change. As a reader, I found myself either frustrated with or cheering for all three characters in sequence as the novel progressed. And although any given character may be acting badly at a certain juncture, the fact that I had been rooting for them only fifty pages earlier meant that none of the three was every wholly unsympathetic.

In fact, Dreiser works so hard to keep Carrie, Drouet and Hurstwood emotionally accessible to the reader, even at their most selfish and unlikeable, that I was reminded of the work of contemporary writers like Toni Morrison and Dorothy Allison - writers who make a point of empathizing with characters usually beyond the pale. I remember how conflicted I felt, reading Morrison's The Bluest Eye, at the author's empathic portrayal of a father who rapes his own daughter, and I wonder whether readers in 1900 would have found Dreiser's subject matter to be equally shocking and conflicting. Probably so, judging by its history: it was withdrawn from publication for being "too sordid," and only after Dreiser cut many suggestive passages did Doubleday agree to publish the expurgated version. In another triumph for Norton Critical Editions, I read the appended catalog of the passages cut in the initial publication, which was fascinating. To my surprise, many of them involved scenes in which Carrie gets cat-called and solicited on the street - surely the fact that this happens is no mystery to any urban woman? I certainly deal with it whenever I walk downtown. But maybe, at the turn of the century, men only felt confident cat-calling women who looked working-class, so the middle-class readers of Sister Carrie would not have encountered the behavior? I'm not sure how to feel about the suggestion that public humiliation of women has been democratized in American cities over the past century, but it's interesting to think about.

But cat-calling is just one small aspect of the loving-yet-critical portraits of 1890s New York and Chicago in this novel. Dreiser is at his most vivid when depicting the inhumane conditions of city life and the unfettered, dog-eat-dog realities of pre-regulation American capitalism. It's this, along with the frank portrayals of cohabiting out of wedlock, that made the book famous, and I think the urban landscape is really the star of Dreiser's show. The reader gets a strong sense of a world full of possibility ripe for the picking - all the young men, like Drouet, streaming in from the countryside to secure sales positions, the newly-constructed glass-fronted buildings housing newly-incorporated retail firms, the movers, shakers, and hangers-on in the untamed melee of exponential urban growth. And one also sees vividly how the skirmish-and-grab for that pool of possibility creates a class of casualties, left even more to their own devices than the modern urban homeless. Dreiser does a good job of communicating the extent to which all his characters are performing without a safety net, and even the highest is capable of a dramatic fall. I think I preferred Sister Carrie to The Good Earth because Dreiser's cities-as-characters are so dynamic. I'm not sure turn-of-the-century American urban literature will become my new favorite genre, but Sister Carrie was certainly enough to convince me to give it another try.