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Give an analysis of the protagonist Sister Carrie
Give an analysis of the protagonist Sister Carrie
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Recommended: Give an analysis of the protagonist Sister Carrie
The picture of the protagonist that Theodore Dreiser’s novel, Sister Carrie, portrays is only a half-truth. By examining Sister Carrie’s character, she is readily deemed as passive, weak, and full of superficial desires and yet in this profoundly inert nature lies the seed for the greater expression of an artistic soul. However, this realization is only drawn out by Ames’s archetypically scholarly eyes (the intelligent but withdrawn engineer); bringing forth the powerful and intimate beauty that Carrie possesses, which without a photograph, the reader would forever remain blind to. Nevertheless, as Ames draws out the riches of Carrie’s humanity, he delineates yet another ideal, the ideal of the artist, which lies far away from the comfort that Carrie covets, and consequently forever constrains her happiness to the heights of her own longing—something that she has never surpassed. Accordingly, as Carrie progresses towards decadence she falls deeper into alienation and loneliness, and through Ames, towards even greater passivity.
The novel steadfastly and in detail presents Carrie’s associations with her two lovers, Drouet and Hurstwood, citing her interactions with them as basis for her character. Hence, the idea develops that she is a weak and passive woman, guided only by a desire to attain an affluent life, where “self interest” is “her guiding characteristic” (p2). In other words, a personality that borders on the pathetic. What little individuality and uniqueness she exhibits as a young woman in search of work in the vast, ruthless city, quickly succumbs to the stylish wealth and passion of the two men. This takes no effort on the part of Drouet, where with his fine clothes and speech, instantly impresses on “her a dim world ...
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...d mouth,” or especially to witness her on the stage and see our own yearning reflected back at us from this small, timid form, would the reading of Carrie’s lonely rise be more agreeable (p116, p384). If we were granted but a glimpse of this lovely figure with her sad eyes then we would attain a deeper understanding, but as it is, we must rely on the vision of Ames to perceive a deeper poetic quality in her. Fittingly, we leave Sister Carrie at the end of the novel, once again heightened to a higher part of life, but no closer to this than ever before, condemned by the narrator to the static life of her “rocking chair by [the] window,” where “dreaming shall you long, alone. In your rocking chair, by your window shall you dream such happiness as you shall never feel” (p400).
Works Cited
Dreiser, Theodore, and E. L. Sister Carrie. Bantam Classics, 1982. Print.
Carrie Watts was a countrywoman at heart. She loved the childhood home where she grew up and never liked the life of the city she was forced to live. She did not hide the fact that she was miserable living with her daughter-in-law. She appeared to be long suffering, a martyr, and given to fits and crying (Ebert, 1986). When given the right timing and occasion, she would open up like a flower, blooming for the first time. She found solace remembering her past life and held a candle to the time when she would go back to
She then moves on to describe each of the characters, and in doing so, their surroundings and how they fit in: "He was cold and wet, and the best part of the day had been used up anyway. He wiped his hands on the grass and let the pinto horse take him toward home. There was little enough comfort there. The house crouched dumb and blind on the high bench in the rain. Jack's horse stood droop-necked and dismal inside the strand of rope fence, but there wasn't any smoke coming from the damned stove (28)."
Before Mrs. Ames and the mother realize the restrictions of their old lives, their worlds have been full of disillusionment and ignorance. Mrs. Ames, for example, is oppressed by her husband’s silence and the search for love and tenderness from anyone, because she lives each day alone, ignored by her scornful husband. And, as a result of being left companionless, she does not mature, rather she longs for tenderness. In other words, Boyle explains her dysfunctional relationship with her husband, “The mystery and silence of her husband’s mind lay like a chiding finger of her lips. Her eyes were gray for the light had been extinguished in them” (57). That is, Mrs. Ames’ spirit remains oppressed by her husband who treats her as a child, and, in doing so, isolates her from his world.
However, if Sister Carrie takes place live in such a world, where people are completely honest about their instinct for self-interest: clothes, money and social positions, where people move from one relationship to another without any attachment and sympathy and where people busy at updating themselves without any self-sacrifice, it will be a completely different story. Carrie might have never received Drouet’s help and met Hurstwood; she might have never got the opportunity to come to New York and realize her actress dream; she might have become another “Hurstwood”. Therefore, we could realize that a man’s fate is always unpredictable, regardless of the social system and circumstances, and nobody could predict what the future would bring to him or
The story initially deals with the interactions of three characters: Basil Ransom, Olive Chancellor and Verena Tarrant. The character of Basil Ransom, a Mississippian who has fought in the Civil War on the side of the Confederates, is presented to us as head-strong, determined, full of honor and tough in his own masculinity and as someone who is aware of the world and the society which he lives in but of which he is not fully accepting. Olive Chancellor, (Basil Ransom’s cousin), a Bostonian woman, on the other hand is a hard-hearted woman who is bitter and is quite opposed to the traditional notions of women and men. She believes that the times of traditional feminine and masculine nature is in the past and that women are as equal as men in the changing future of society; she fights against the brutal nature of men with her rugged character in the narrative. The historical context of the story is the Civil War and its influence on the society of the day, Basil who lost everything in the war has to seek new employment and does not see eye to eye with the new ideals of r...
An American city seemed extremely attractive from afar. Big city pleasures such as electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephones created jealousy from the rural farmers, who did not possess such things. Also, cities lured many people with architectural marvels such as the skyscrapers with their fancy elevators. Rural farmers started to think their lives as dull when compared to the late night glitter of the cities. Jobs were also another lure of the big city. Industrial jobs presented jobs for both men and women. Not only did these jobs provide an income in which the employee could spend at city department stores (such as New York’s Macy’s) but also the income provided greater equality for many minorities as well as women. Theodore Dreiser’s further encouraged the glamorous city life belief when he wrote Sister Carrie (1990).
In conclusion, the window helps to calm Mrs. Mallard’s fears about what’s to come in her life, but it also was the death of her. As she sat in the window pondering the news of her husbands passing, she only sheds a tear before feeling slight joy in her heart. If Mrs. Mallard would have taken the time to morn her husband properly, and not been so quick to run away and act selfish about her feelings, she wouldn’t have suffered from a heart attack from the shock when she finds him to still be
Her death is foreshadowed in the beginning when it mentions that she was “afflicted with heart trouble”. Because of this, when her sister told her that her husband had died, it was done so delicately. After Mrs. Mallard is told, is where the story really begins to set a tone of elegiac settings, and how she is expressing herself is in direct contrast to weather, i.e. ‘the storm of grief”. When Mrs. Mallard goes to her room and sits down to rest, she begins to notice how lovely the weather is outside, and here the tone takes a sudden change from elegiac to soothing and peaceful. She notices the trees that are “aquiver with new spring life” and the “delicious breath of rain”. Not only are these segments directly related to her change of emotion, but they are also foreshadowing the Birjoy she will feel momentarily. She begins to realize she is “free” from whatever responsibilities she held to her husband, and is consumed with “monstrous joy” that she will be living “for herself”. Other symbols besides the weather, is also the bird she first notices when she first retires to her room to be alone with her grief. The birds are happy, singing, and carefree of any limitations. Also the door when her sister, Louise, begs her to open the door. She is also symbolically opening the door to her new life, the one she will live in total liberation with the restraints of her husband. She begins to also look at life with new eyes, seeing it in a different light, no longer seeing as a life of repression. She loved him, but not as much as she suddenly loves herself.
The book uses fictional documents, such as book excerpts, news reports, and hearing transcripts, to frame the story of Carietta "Carrie" White, a 17-year-old girl from Chamberlain, Maine. Carrie's mother, Margaret, a fanatical Christian fundamentalist, has a vindictive and unstable personality, and over the years has ruled Carrie with an iron rod and repeated threats of damnation, as well as occasional physical abuse. Carrie does not fare much better at her school where her frumpy looks, lack of friends and lack of popularity with boys make her the butt of ridicule, embarrassment, and public humiliation by her fellow teenage peers.
...her room she will no longer be bound to her husband but rather free to do what she wants whenever she chooses to. Mrs. Mallard is at last apart from a person who was once somebody she loved but then started to dislike him because of his selfishness towards her. Then at last she comes to a point when she sees him and dies because she knows she will be jailed up again with his possession with her.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Print.
Jonathan Swift’s poem, “A Lady’s Dressing Room,” represents a man’s love for a woman as the author, Strephon, and audience explore the happenings inside a woman’s bedroom. Like many other men, Strephon is an obsessed lover whose vision of women is distorted by eighteenth century radical ideals of love and beauty. While the poem is a satire, Swift tries to establish that love is blind and presents that love is only based on beauty of women. By introducing an idealistic lover into a realistic environment, he examines the disturbing end results as Celia falls from her godlike state. As she is humanized, Swift successfully demolishes the ridiculous fantasies of love and beauty, and men are also able to see more clearly behind the clothing and make-up. In “A Lady’s Dressing Room,” Swift exposes the contradiction between idealized love created by eighteenth century society and reality, as he forces Strephon see past Celia’s façade by investigating Celia’s dressing room and discovering traumatizing facts as well as disillusioning him with the help of Swift’s vivid description.
It is expected of woman to shatter into crisis as news of her husband’s death is exposed. In this reading, the author presents a widow named Louise Mallard, who against all odds dares to expose her desired dream. Mrs. Mallard subdues an unexpected reaction as she was notified of Mr. Mallard’s death. With sense of relief, she disgracefully mourns his absence. Yet, despite the horrendous news, Louise was powerless as a transparent feeling of joy approached her heart. Freedom was gifted. She “opened and spread her arms out…”
This story is an exploration of one's personal life and dismay and its affect on their life. Miss Meadow's, the main character gives us an outlook of human behavior. The story starts with the "trotting" of Miss Meadows in the hall and "the girls of all ages, rosy from the air, and bubbling over with that gleeful excitement that comes from running to school on a fine autumn morning, hurried, skipped, fluttered by" (pg 1, line 3-5). The contrast between Miss Meadow's nature of "cold" and "sharp despair" (pg 1, line 1) on one side and the girls happily passing by with glee and delight shows the sense of isolation roaming around the hall. So Miss Meadows can also be taken as a symbol of isolation and despair which Katherine herself depicted h...
James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man presents an account of the formative years of aspiring author Stephen Dedalus. "The very title of the novel suggests that Joyce's focus throughout will be those aspects of the young man's life that are key to his artistic development" (Drew 276). Each event in Stephen's life -- from the opening story of the moocow to his experiences with religion and the university -- contributes to his growth as an artist. Central to the experiences of Stephen's life are, of course, the people with whom he interacts, and of primary importance among these people are women, who, as his story progresses, prove to be a driving force behind Stephen's art.