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An Analysis of Sister Carrie
It was 1889; Carrie Meeber, an eighteen-year-old girl, was boarding a train from Columbia City to start a new life with her sister and her family in Chicago. Columbia City was a small town that did not have much to offer to anyone who wanted to make something of themselves. But in Chicago Carrie believed she would be able to find work and get good money. Chicago, in 1889, had the peculiar qualifications of growth, which made such adventuresome pilgrimages even on the part of young girls plausible1[1].
When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse2[2]. Once Carrie arrived in Chicago and settled in with her sister and her husband she started to see that living in Chicago was not going to be as easy as she thought. She had to get a job and pay rent, not to mention buy the things that she wished to.
Most women stayed at home to take care of her children, make meals, keep house, and to care for the sick in the late nineteenth century3[3]. Only five percent of married women held jobs outside the home in 19004[4]. But some did go out looking for work in order to help their family out as much as possible with their bills. Carrie wanted to go out and make something of herself.
Trying to find a job was a difficult task in itself. "Well, we prefer young women just now with some experience. I guess we can't use you."5[5] Carrie heard this over and over again. Until finally finding a job that paid her three and a half-dollars a week working in a shoe factory. This was a grueling task working with leather non-stop in a hot stuffy overpopulated room. After becoming sick she lost her job at the shoe factory and so later on her very good friend Drouet got her a part in a theatrical performance at a Lodge.
Theaters were a big thing at the time for entertainment. Many middle class people would go and see a matinee maybe once a week to have some fun. At this time in the late 1900's there wasn't much for people to do at night and on weekends except for staying at home.