Sister Carrie: Chapter 30 Summary & Analysis

Although Hurstwood is considered wealthy in Chicago, he is “but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York.” The atmosphere in New York “could not incite in him the cravings of a boy of eighteen, but in so far as they were excited, the lack of hope made them proportionately bitter.” Hurstwood also begins to feel his age. He quickly decides that he needs a job, and begins to look for one in the morning papers.

Carrie and Hurstwood find an apartment and Carrie notices that the rooms are smaller than the rooms in Chicago. Hurstwood explains new houses in New Work are always small. The couple settle into their house, with Carrie having “enough of the instincts of a housewife to take great satisfaction” in the newness and bright woodwork of the apartment.

Hurstwood begins his job hunt. After working in the luxurious saloon in Chicago, “he [cannot] stomach the commonplace saloons which he [finds] advertised.” Finally, he finds a resort in Warren Street “which seem[s] an excellent venture.” Hurstwood would get a third of the interest in return for $1,000 and managerial ability. Hurstwood makes plans to improve the resort so that he can get paid more. He returns home to tell Carrie, elated.

Over time, Hurstwood discovers his business partner to be drunk and disagreeable. He also finds that his customers are “nothing like the class of patronage which he had enjoyed in Chicago.” Hurstwood misses the celebrities that frequented his old resort. Furthermore, the business does not particularly pay well—he will have to monitor his expenses, which he finds mortifying.

Hurstwood initially enjoys his time at home with Carrie, “but the novelty of this wane[s] after a time, and he beg[ins] to feel the drag of his duties.” He tells Carrie to put off buying a dress for the sake of saving money. Then, “other things followed from time to time, little things of the same sort, which in their cumulative effect were eventually equal to a full revelation.” Carrie notices the change in Hurstwood and realizes that “she [is] not in his confidence.”

Hurstwood is resistant to his new lifestyle and cannot help contrasting his current state with his former one in Chicago. Furthermore, Hurstwood is afraid of meeting old acquaintances. He encountered an old buyer who had “extended his hand with an evident mixture of feeling and a lack of plausible interest.” Hurstwood increasingly desires more money. He hopes to “keep up his pretensions sufficiently long without exposure to make good, and then all [will] be well.” The narrator relates that Hurstwood failed “to take account of the frailties of human nature—the difficulties of matrimonial life.”