Characterization in Sister Carrie
The theme of unrequited love and unfulfilled ambitions, against a backdrop of a nation being transformed by industrialism and capitalism, provides the substance of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. During the late 19th Century we encounter three main characters who demonstrate this underlying motif: Carrie Meeber, Charles H. Drouet, and George W. Hurstwood. Carrie will fulfill many of her desires for riches and success, but her insatiable appetite will leave her feeling dissatisfied at the end of the novel and all alone. With respect to the two men who most covet her affections, Charles Drouet and George Hurstwood we have a study in contrasts. About the only thing Drouet and Hurstwood have in common is that they both desire Carrie's love. Both Drouet and Hurstwood love Carrie, but Drouet is a materialist and Hurstwood is a romanticist - a fact that will enable Drouet to survive the loss of Carrie as Hurstwood commits suicide over the loss.
From early in the novel we see Drouet established as a representative of the new America - industrialism, capitalism, and nouveau riche successes. When Carrie meets Drouet on the train, his manners and fine dress impress her but they are only a cover for an identity that believes he needs to impress others to be successful. In other words, Drouet's manners and attitudes are put on like so many new clothes, discarded when they no longer fit his purposes. However, it is exactly these superficial qualities that impress Carrie Meeber, a young woman on her way to Chicago to make her way in the world. Carrie eventually succumbs to the clothes, money, and housing Drouet lavishes on her, but it is her desires and his money that unite them ...
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... to escape the reality of their lives through material pursuits. Hurstwood cannot do so and as a result succumbs to this inability in the face of such heartaches and losses.
WORKS CITED
Eby, C. V. Cultural and historical contexts in Sister Carrie. Univ. of Pennsylvania Library. Available: http://www. library.upenn.edu/special/dreiser/scculhist.html, 2001: 1-5.
Moers, E. The Blizzard. In Sister Carrie. Edited by Donald Pizer, (2nd edit.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991: 525-533.
Dreiser, T. Sister Carrie. Edited by Donald Pizer, (2nd edit.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991.
Warren, R. P. Sister Carrie. In Sister Carrie. Edited by Donald Pizer, (2nd edit.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991: 534-542.
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In his philosophical text, The Republic, Plato argues that justice can only be realized by the moderation of the soul, which he claims reflects as the moderation of the city. He engages in a debate, via the persona of Socrates, with Ademantus and Gaucon on the benefit, or lack thereof, for the man who leads a just life. I shall argue that this analogy reflecting the governing of forces in the soul and in city serves as a sufficient device in proving that justice is beneficial to those who believe in, and practice it. I shall further argue that Plato establishes that the metaphorical bridge between the city and soul analogy and reality is the leader, and that in the city governed by justice the philosopher is king.
Ingram, Heather, ed. Women’s Fiction Between the Wars. "Virginia Woolf: Retrieving the Mother." St. Martin's Press. New York, 1998.
Romines, Ann. The Home Plot: Women, Writing & Domestic Ritual. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. 1992.
Later in the story, our sympathy transfers from Medea to Jason. Her revenge turns immoral, leaving readers with a sense of uneasiness. It is not so much the fact that she kills Creon and his daughter, but the fact that she slays her children in cold-blood.
Rowlandson, Mary “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 257-88. Print.
The Sumero-Babylonian version of the epic of Gilgamesh, after two and a half millennia of dormancy, was resurrected by British archaeologists in the nineteenth century. Amid the rubble of an Assyrian palace, the twelve clay tablets inscribed the adventures of the first hero of world literature – King Gilgamesh, whose oral folk tales go back to at least 3000 years before Christ (Harris 1). Tablet XI contains the story of the Flood. In this essay let us compare this flood account to the more recent Noah’s Flood account in Genesis of the Old Testament.
Munro, Alice. Lives of Girls and Women. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. January, 1974. Book.
However, as I continued to read the story I began to wonder if maybe Connie’s life was not in any way parallel to my own. I have a younger sister where she has an older sister, but that is where the similarities end. Her mother is always telling her that she should be more like June, her older sister. It seemed to me that June living with her parents at her age was unusual, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy this and was always doing things to h...
Many times people are blind to the truth that is right in front of them. The solution to their problems may have been blatantly obvious, however, they could not actually “see” their answer by their blindness to the truth. There have been instances where being blind is not actually a handicap, but more of a tool to see things to a deeper meaning. Although the blind may not have physical sight, they have another kind of vision. In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus the King, Tiresias, the blind prophet, addresses the truth of the prophecy to Oedipus and Jocasta. Oedipus has been blind to the truth of the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother his whole life. Once Oedipus discovers the truth, he loses his physical vision by blinding himself. Within these cases, the central theme of blindness can be expressed by Oedipus’s ignorance to see the higher vision- the truth
The closest parallel to the Biblical story of the flood occurs in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, our fullest version of which is furnished by an Akkadian recension prepared, in the seventh century B.C. for the great library of King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. The story itself is far older. We have fragments of versions dating as much as a thousand years earlier, and we possess also portions of a Summerian archetype.
Kelley, Mary. Introduction. The Power of Her Sympathy. By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993.
Aside from providing a time frame that initiates a sense of urgency to the play (Medea only has a day to complete her plans), the exchange between Creon and Medea introduces the theme of her cleverness.
After the overthrow of their Father Cronus he made a deal with his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon. They three shared in ruling the world. He had the worst part, Hades was made lord of the underworld and ruling over the dead. (Hades. The Olympians) He is called the King of the dead. He is known to be a greedy god. Hades only cares about increasing his subjects and increasing the dead. Hades is the god of riches because of all the valuable metals, which are mined from the earth. Hades rarely leaves the underworld. He is hardhearted and terrible, but not impulsive. He is married to Persephone. Hades abducted her and made her his wife. (Hades. The
Ed. Janelle Rohr. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1989. Call Number: HV4711.A581989. Cohen, Carl.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...