Sister Carrie: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, and Sources Criticism (Norton Critical Editions)

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Summary: Determinism at work: Carrie rises; Hurstwood falls
Review: Dreiser's Sister Carrie is an urban novel. A country girl comes to the city, ends up with a slick saleman as a kept woman, but runs off with a bar manager to New York where she finds fame as an actress. Her bar manager husband falls on hard times and kills himself. Carrie's fortunes rise as Hurstwood's falls. The characters operate in the world of the city with its mystical pull. Their decisions and some chance events help guide along the plot, but this is a world of survival of the fittest. Carrie turns out to be fit, while Hurstwood does not. There are undertones of Darwin's theories. Dreiser himself occasionally appears as a voice in the work separate from the narrator and the characters. The Norton Critical Edition contains useful reference works at the back and a bibliography helpful for starting research.