Urban Life and Decay Theme Analysis

At its core, Sister Carrie details a young girl’s transition from provincial to city life. Caroline “Carrie” Meeber moves from rural Columbia City, Wisconsin, to Chicago and then to New York. Each move shows Carrie the complexities of living in a larger, more urban sphere. With each of these transitions, Carrie is eager to adapt and conform to her new environment, and, consequently, grows increasingly sophisticated as she moves from one cosmopolitan city to another. At the same time, Carrie’s growth in sophistication parallels her fall from innocence, as she goes from an enthusiastic girl from the country to, ultimately, a jaded city woman. In this way, Dreiser suggests that while urbanization may be conflated with progress, it also leads to decay—of innocence, morals, and spirit. As Carrie learns in the story, the trappings of urban life don’t lead to a genuine increase in happiness.

Towards the beginning of the novel, Dreiser briefly theorizes as to what dangers may befall a young woman when she moves from the countryside to the city, painting the city as a dangerous place brimming with temptation and corruption. According to Dreiser, only two things can possibly happen when a young woman leaves her home: “Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility.” The idea of having a “cosmopolitan standard of virtue” seems positive; such an idea connotes diversity, sophistication, and experience. However, Dreiser frames it as something that causes people to “[become] worse.” This hints that Dreiser views the city as a place that causes degeneration despite the semblance of growth. Dreiser relates that “the city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter.” The language in this sentence recalls the language typically used to describe the devil. The city’s devilish nature is reinforced by an idea from the previous quotation, namely, that a young girl who travels to the city will necessarily “[become] worse” unless “she falls into saving hands and become better.” In this way, Dreiser portrays the city as an alluring but destructive force. It is not the civilized place that many, including Carrie, believe it to be.

Upon moving from the countryside to Chicago, Carrie notices the cosmopolitan mannerisms of the people surrounding her and feels an urge to conform to city culture. However, even though she succeeds, she feels a sense of moral deficiency. Upon seeing department stores and the well-dressed women frequenting them, Carrie feels an instant desire to blend in: “A flame of envy lighted in her heart. She realised in a dim way how much the city held—wealth, fashion, ease—every adornment for women, and she longed for dress and beauty with a whole heart.” Carrie’s longings are reasonable and hardly morally reprehensible, considering the scanty and difficult life she leads in her sister Minnie’s household. When Drouet, a financially stable salesman, asks Carrie to be his mistress, Carrie agrees, seeing it as a natural step towards gaining the “dress and beauty [she longed for] with a whole heart.” Under Drouet’s care, Carrie becomes “comfortably established—in the eyes of the starveling, beaten by every wind and gusty sheet of rain, she [is] safe in a halcyon harbour.” In this way, Carrie becomes comparatively well off compared to people of lesser means, including Minnie and Hanson. But despite this, Carrie does not believe her life has progressed and feels “mournful misgivings” about her transformation from being an honest worker to a kept woman. Carrie has advanced in socioeconomic status yet still feels a sense of decline: “She looked into her glass and saw a prettier Carrie than she had seen before; she looked into her mind, a mirror prepared of her own and the world’s opinions, and saw a worse.” Becoming more cosmopolitan, Dreiser suggests, has led Carrie to moral decay.

Then, after moving from Chicago to New York, Carrie sets her sights on fame—another marker of cosmopolitan success—in addition to wealth. However, even though she becomes an actress and achieves stardom, her newfound celebrity strips her of her vitality and zest for life. When Carrie and her second lover, Hurstwood, run out of money in New York, Carrie looks to the stage for a job, “consider[ing] the stage as a door through which she might enter that gilded state which she had so much craved.” Carrie quickly rises from chorus girl to lead actress, “getting in the metropolitan whirl of pleasure.” As a burgeoning star, she receives letters from many suitors and admirers but this “incite[s] her only to coolness and indifference.” Having had her fill of cosmopolitan men, Carrie simply dismisses them with weariness: “I don’t want to go [out] with these people who write to me. I know what kind they are,” she says in exhaustion. Even though being famous and surrounded by adoring suitors may seem exhilarating, it leaves Carrie empty and unsatisfied.

By the end of the novel, Carrie leads a thoroughly cosmopolitan life. Rich, beautiful, and famous, Carrie is the envy of all—except for herself. She has begun to see that nothing the city offers can make her happy: “Even had Hurstwood returned in his original beauty and glory, he could not now have allured her. She had learned that his world, as in her own present state, was not happiness.” With this, readers realize that when Dreiser states that a “cosmopolitan standard of virtue” causes young women to “[become] worse,” he does not necessarily refer to just moral degeneration; rather, it is a sort of decay of the spirit, whereby the young woman falls into a sort of despondency upon realizing the city will never bring genuine improvement to her life. Despite the glowing promises that a cosmopolitan life seems to offer, this lifestyle ultimately rings hollow.