Dreiser, Theodore

Eighteen-year-old Carrie Meeber moves from a small town to Chicago. She dreams of becoming an actress and uses her sexuality to fulfill her goals. After awhile she rebels against all classic morality and becomes a fallen woman.

The story of a young woman from Wisconsin who goes to Chicago, becomes an actress, marries and goes to New York, and when her husband loses his job, goes onstage again.

The story of a young woman from Wisconsin who goes to Chicago, becomes an actress, marries and goes to New York, and when her husband loses his job, goes onstage again.

The story of a young woman from Wisconsin who goes to Chicago, becomes an actress, marries and goes to New York, and when her husband loses his job, goes onstage again.

Literary Masterpieces is one series of the trio that makes up the Gale Study Guides to Great Literature (the others are Literary Topics and Literary Masters). Each Literary Masterpieces volume chooses a book by one of the authors covered in Literary Masters and offers a discussion of themes, characters, comparisons with social events of the era when the book was written and a critical analysis. Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, written in 1900, broke with the tradition of the time of sentimental romance in favor of a realistic approach. The novel shocked its publisher, the critics and the public with its themes of the rejected family, the struggle against poverty, the desire for wealth, the illusion of limitless opportunity and the conflict between personal desire and conventional restraint. In many ways, Carrie's story anticipates the radical change in social values that took place in twentieth-century America.

Literary Masters is one series of the trio that makes up the Gale Study Guides to Great Literature (the others are Literary Masterpieces and Literary Topics). Each Literary Masters volume introduces a significant author and covers basic biographical information. Theodore Dreiser grew up in dysfunctional family with an overly strict, religious father and a mother who could always find "the silver lining". As a result, many of Dreiser's novels signal the diminished role of religious belief among most Americans at the time (1911-1940).