17 h 51 minAudiobook10 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the comfort you long for only teaches you to want more?
Eighteen-year-old Caroline Meeber leaves her small Wisconsin town for Chicago, eager for work and comfort. Her sister Minnie's cramped home offers little room for either. Then Charles Drouet, a friendly, vain travelling salesman, offers Carrie a way beyond careful pennies and shabby clothes.
Drouet introduces her to George Hurstwood, a polished bar manager drawn to Carrie despite his own cold home life. As desire pulls them closer, comfort and social standing become things to risk. In Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser explores ambition without scolding the people caught in its grip.
What you’ll discover
- A city that beckons Enter a Chicago where the promise of comfort meets the pressure of poverty.
- Carrie's restless hopes Follow a young woman whose longing grows as each new desire takes shape.
- Two kinds of charm Meet Drouet and Hurstwood, men whose appeal draws Carrie toward difficult choices.
- Money behind appearances See how clothes, rank, and household pennies shape what people expect from life.
- Realism without a sermon Explore desire through Dreiser's plain, unsentimental gaze, without easy judgments about Carrie's choices.
Who will love it
For readers who love social novels about ambition, class and the pull of the city, and for anyone curious about the roots of American realism.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A girl boards a train for Chicago
- Work and want in a hard city
- Drouet offers a way out
- Hurstwood, the man who seems to have it all
- A rash act and a flight to New York
- Hurstwood in New York, losing his grip
- Carrie finds the stage
- What the novel is really about
- How Dreiser tells it
Who’s who
- Carrie MeeberA young country girl who comes to Chicago for work and comfort, and who discovers a gift for the stage.
- Charles DrouetA friendly, vain travelling salesman who meets Carrie on the train and offers her easy comfort.
- George HurstwoodA polished bar manager with a cold home life, who is drawn to Carrie and risks his position for her.
- Minnie HansonCarrie's older sister in Chicago, a hardworking woman who lives on little and expects the same prudence from Carrie.
- Julia HurstwoodHurstwood's wife, a proud, cold woman who cares chiefly about rank, money and appearances.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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La hermana Carrie: una novela
by Theodore Dreiser · 1900
Carrie boards a train for Chicago, where money, desire and the men she meets shape her dreams of a new life.
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In short
Sister Carrie is a novel by the American writer Theodore Dreiser, first published in 1900. It follows Caroline Meeber, an eighteen-year-old country girl who leaves her small Wisconsin town for Chicago in 1889, and the men who pass through her life as she tries to make something of herself.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A girl boards a train for Chicago
The story opens with Carrie Meeber on the train to Chicago. She is eighteen, pretty, poor and eager. She carries a little money and the address of her older sister, Minnie Hanson. On the train she meets Charles Drouet, a cheerful travelling salesman who talks easily and notices her at once.
Dreiser tells us that a girl like Carrie is at a dangerous point. She is not wicked, and she is not wise. She has her looks, her quick feelings and a hunger for nicer things. Drouet gives her his card and his attention, and she is flattered. Before the train arrives, she has already half agreed to see him again.
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What is Sister Carrie about?
It follows Carrie Meeber, who moves from a small Wisconsin town to Chicago in 1889 and rises through the men she meets and her talent for acting, while one of those men falls into ruin.
Why was Sister Carrie controversial?
Carrie lives with men outside marriage, and Dreiser does not punish her or condemn her. This broke the moral rules of 1900 fiction, and the publisher released the book quietly.
Why is it called Sister Carrie?
Carrie first goes to Chicago to live with her sister, Minnie Hanson, and the title points to her family role and her humble start. Dreiser's own sister also inspired the character.
The author
Theodore Dreiser
1871–1945 · American novelist and journalist
Theodore Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He lived in New York and later in Los Angeles, where he died in 1945. His novels include Sister Carrie (1900), Jennie Gerhardt (1911), The Financier (1912), and An American Tragedy (1925).
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