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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sister Carrie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Urban Life and Decay
Morality and Instinct
Wealth and Class
Summary
Analysis
Minnie, Carrie’s sister, brings Carrie to her third-floor flat, where she lives with her husband and baby in a working-class neighborhood. Looking out the window, Carrie continues to marvel at the city. Minnie’s husband, Hanson, is indifferent to Carrie and simply tells her that she will find work in a matter of days. He seems keen that she should find work as soon as possible. Hanson and Minnie expect Carrie to pay for board.
Minnie and Hanson are working class people who essentially live for labor. They do not think of taking Carrie around the city; indeed, Hanson wants Carrie to find work as soon as possible. Minnie and Hanson are evidently not financially comfortable—they expect Carrie, who is family, to pay rent as would a boarder.
Themes
Literary Devices
As Minnie prepares dinner, Carrie inspects the apartment and finds it dull, indicative of “the drag of a lean and narrow life.” At dinner, Hanson tells Carrie to look for work in the “big manufacturing houses” out east. Minnie appears to know little about the city in comparison to Hanson. Hanson retires early, and as Carrie and Minnie finish chores, Carrie notes again that “it was a steady round of toil with [Minnie].”
There is nothing glamourous about Minnie and Hanson’s lives. Carrie finds everything about them dull. Furthermore, though Minnie has already lived in Chicago for a presumable extended amount of time, she knows little about the city, showing that she hardly goes out to enjoy cosmopolitan entertainment. Minnie appears to do nothing except for take care of the house and baby—she leads the opposite kind of life that Carrie wishes to lead.
Themes
Carrie decides that Drouet cannot visit her anytime soon, until she finds a job and “establish[es] herself.” She writes to him, citing that the flat is too small. Carrie struggles with how to conclude the letter and ends up simply signing “sincerely” and her name. After looking at the streets some more, she goes to bed.
Carrie is too ashamed of Minnie’s situation to allow Drouet to visit. She also perceives that there is no familial warmth from Minnie and Hanson and their flat is not really her home, as she does not feel it right to invite guests over before she has paid rent.
Themes
Carrie meets her sister in the dining room after waking up, and notes that Minnie has change a lot since they last saw each other: she is now “thin, though rugged,” influenced by Hanson, and “fast hardening into narrower conceptions of pleasure and duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth.” The narrator relates that Minnie only invited Carrie because she could work and pay board in the city, not because Minnie missed her sister. Carrie will most likely become a shop girl and keep the job “until something happen[s],” though neither woman knows what that “something” is. Carrie leaves to look for work.
Carrie expected city life to help her gain recognition and glamour. However, looking at Minnie, it has done quite the opposite—Minnie lives in obscurity and scarcity. The two sisters are as different as can be. Minnie does not show Carrie sisterly affection and merely treats her as a friendly tenant. Minnie expects her sister to find satisfaction in work until something happens, rather than for Carrie to actively make something of herself. In other words, she does not hold the same big dreams for Carrie as Carrie does for herself.
Themes
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Chicago is a growing city whose population consists mainly of working-class people. The center of Chicago is “the vast wholesale and shopping district,” which is a popular destination for those seeking work. This district’s atmosphere is intimidating to the average applicant, and “make[s] the gulf between poverty and success seem both wide and deep.”
Chicago is a city that is rapidly growing and expanding. Consequently, many workers flood to the Chicago in complete ignorance, not knowing where to go save for the wholesale and shopping districts. Carrie is one of these ignorant work-seekers who cannot help but feel overwhelmed by everything. The district gives workers the sense that the American Dream is quite out of reach.
Themes
Literary Devices
Carrie arrives in this district, eager to find employment and “delayed at every step by the interest of the unfolding scene, and a sense of helplessness amid so much evidence of power and force which she d[oes] not understand.” Everything in the district feels imposing and mysterious to Carrie. Memories of Columbia City “los[e] all significance in her little world.” Carrie feels apprehensive that she can do anything in this big, strange, beautiful new world.
The city is an overwhelming place and Carrie realizes that it may not be as easy to gain recognition and power as she had imagined on the train. She is completely ignorant as to how things in the city work, having only lived in “her little world.” Nevertheless, though apprehensive, Carrie appears to like the city and thinks it quite beautiful a place.
Themes
