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Chapter 31
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
Carrie’s experience on Broadway makes her emotional and receptive to the contents of the play. As she watches, she remembers her acting stint in Chicago and desires “to be a part of [the actors].” Carrie also dwells on the fine women she saw on Broadway and “it ached her to know that she was not one of them.” The play is about “charmingly overdressed ladies and gentlemen [suffering] the pangs of jealousy amid gilded surroundings.” Carrie wants to bring her own suffering to that gilded world.
For Carrie, the stage is an escape from reality. While watching a play, she can forget about her own troubles and dwell on the art before her. The fact that Carrie wishes to bring her own suffering into more luxurious surroundings shows her continuing innocence—she does not realize that her troubles will follow her regardless of the environment she’s in.
Themes
Literary Devices
Walking down Broadway teaches Carrie “a sharper lesson”: she will not have live until she has achieved her dream of becoming an actress. After returning home, her apartment seems to be “a commonplace thing.” Carrie keeps revisiting the scenes of the play, creating in her a yearning to be an actress. By the time Hurstwood arrives at home, Carrie is exceedingly moody.
Carrie’s greed for wealth resurfaces once again. She grows discontent with her life with Hurstwood after seeing Broadway, as she once grew discontent with her life with Drouet after seeing the great houses in Chicago. For Carrie, happiness is always out of reach—she continually desires the next best thing.
Themes
Literary Devices
Hurstwood inquires after Carrie’s moodiness, and Carrie replies that she doesn’t feel well. Hurstwood invites her to see a show but Carrie refuses, citing that she already saw one. Carrie changes her mind after eating, as “a little food in the stomach does wonders.” Nevertheless, Carrie’s thoughts of discontent often resurface.
The fact that eating food can change Carrie’s mind shows that she is easily affected by her surroundings. Carrie can only helplessly succumb to the influences of the environment. This reinforces the novel’s status as a naturalistic work, as the naturalist movement sought to show how people were subject to the whims of larger forces around them.
Themes
About a month after this experience, Mrs. Vance invites Carrie to the theater. Hurstwood is busy. Carrie dresses according to Mrs. Vance’s good-natured suggestions. Hurstwood notices this “new tendency on Carrie’s part.” He does not object to the purchases, but “her requests were not a delight to him.” On this occasion, Carrie “had on her best, but there was comfort in the thought that if she must confine herself to a best, it was neat and fitting.
Carrie follows Mrs. Vance’s suggestions as she once imitated the railroad treasurer’s daughter in Chicago. Carrie is always attempting to follow the example of the women she perceives as superior to herself. Hurstwood’s displeasure with Carrie’s spending contrasts with Drouet’s good-natured cheerfulness when Carrie wore pretty clothes in Chicago. Ironically, it seems that Drouet was a better man to Carrie than Hurstwood is to her.
Themes
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Carrie meets Mrs. Vance’s cousin, Ames. She finds him “an exceedingly genial soul.” Ames demonstrates a platonic attention towards Carrie: “He was interested to find her so young a wife, and so pretty, though it was only a respectful interest […] He had respect for the married state, and thought only of some pretty marriageable girls in Indianapolis.” Carrie, Mr. Vance and Mrs. Vance, and Ames take a coach to Sherry’s, a luxurious “temple of gastronomy.” Carrie feels envious of Mrs. Vance: “What a wonderful thing it was to be rich.”
Ames appears honorable next to Hurstwood. Carrie was introduced as another man’s wife to both Ames and Hurstwood; however, where Hurstwood tried to win her, Ames thinks of no such thing even though he finds Carrie attractive. The fact that Carrie goes to Sherry’s without Hurstwood shows that the couple is growing distant—their social lives are not intertwined.
Themes
Vance leads the way through the luxurious tables at Sherry’s. Carrie “[is] keenly aware of all the little things that were done” in the restaurant.” The prices at Sherry’s are uncommonly high. Carrie remembers the “far different occasion” when she dined with Drouet and the times when she was “poor, hungry, drifting at her wits’ ends.” The waiters demonstrate “exclusively personal attention.” Vance orders liberally for the group.
Carrie’s recollection about eating with Drouet highlights the fact that her standards have changed. She once found eating in that good but common restaurant with Drouet a luxury; now, she needs a much more luxurious restaurant to impress her. Carrie standards are always shifting depending on her experiences and the environment that she is in.
Themes
Ames remarks to Carrie that “it is a shame for people to spend so much money this way.” Carrie feels surprised, as “he seemed to be thinking about something over which she had never pondered.” Carrie takes Ames’s words seriously, as she feels that “he [is] better educated that she [is].” Over dinner, the table discusses literature. Ames unknowingly denounces a book that Carrie has read, and Carrie, for the first time, “[feels] the pain of not understanding.”
Ames is the first individual in the novel to introduce the idea that wealth is not necessarily good. Indeed, excessive wealth can be quite vulgar. The fact that Carrie does not understand Ames highlights her ignorance. However, the fact that she listens to him and takes him seriously shows that Carrie is aware that people can have better taste, and that her own tastes may be unrefined.
Themes
As Carrie talks to Ames, she feels that “he [seems] wiser than Hurstwood, saner and brighter than Drouet.” Ames relates his indifference toward wealth, a new concept for Carrie. There is something about Ames that appeals to Carrie, an on the way out, Carrie asks Ames for his opinion on acting. He expresses his approval, which “[sets] Carrie’s heart bounding.” Carrie wishes to be an actress, so that “such men as [Ames] would approve of her.”
Carrie’s male ideal is constantly evolving. Drouet was who she fantasized about when she was working among the brazen youth at the shoe factory. Hurstwood became the object of her affection when she grew tired of Drouet’s lack of sensitivity. Now, Ames is her new ideal. He appears smarter than all the men that she met before. Ames is the first individual whom Carrie finds impressive for reasons unrelated to wealth—she is beginning to realize that money is not everything.
Themes
Much to Carrie’s disappointment, Ames leaves the company early. Carrie finds Hurstwood at home sleeping, with “his clothes […] scattered loosely about.” She finds this “disagreeable” and sits in the dining room to think. The narrator relates that “through a fog of longing and conflicting desires [Carrie is] beginning to see.”
Hurstwood’s relationship with Carrie is disintegrating. As Hurstwood ages and grows less suave and considerate, he is also growing less attractive in Carrie’s eyes. Carrie begins to realize her mistake in running away with Hurstwood, and, under the influence of Ames, begins to see that wealth is not the way to happiness.
Themes
