Sister Carrie

by

Theodore Dreiser

Hurstwood is Carrie’s lover, husband of Julia Hurstwood, and father to George Jr. and Jessica. At the beginning of the novel, Hurstwood’s life is the very picture of the American dream: through hard work, he has acquired a picture-perfect family, a distinguished managerial position in a popular saloon, and a modest fortune. Nevertheless, through Hurstwood, readers learn just how hollow the American dream can be: although he has all the trappings of a successful life, Hurstwood’s marriage is loveless and his family life is dreary. Initially, Hurstwood finds genuine happiness in Carrie’s company, delighted by her innocence and beauty. Thus, he chooses to abandon his modest empire in Chicago—and his family—for a new life with Carrie in New York, stealing money from the saloon (though eventually returning most of it) to support them. Unfortunately, his wealth and passion for Carrie steadily decline, and his life disintegrates as he loses both his job and motivation. After Carrie leaves him, Hurstwood goes from bad to worse. The once rich, well-connected manager ultimately commits suicide as a vagrant in a 15-cent-a-day boarding house. The declining years of Hurstwood’s life show just how fast the American dream can crumble. Towards the end of his life, Hurstwood mostly daydreams about his life and family back in Chicago rather that his time with Carrie in New York; although Hurstwood thought being with Carrie would bring him happiness, it seems that he was actually happier with his supposedly unbearable family.

George W. Hurstwood Quotes in Sister Carrie

The Sister Carrie quotes below are all either spoken by George W. Hurstwood or refer to George W. Hurstwood. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Urban Life and Decay Theme Icon
).
Chapter 14 Quotes

[Drouet] was simply letting things drift because he preferred the free round of his present state to any legal trammellings. In contrast, Hurstwood appeared strong and sincere. He had no easy manner of putting her off. He sympathised with her and showed her what her true value was. He needed her, while Drouet did not care.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood, Charles H. Drouet
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

[Hurstwood] was evidently a light among them, reflecting in his personality the ambitions of those who greeted him. He was acknowledged, fawned upon, in a way lionised. Through it all one could see the standing of the man. It was greatness in a way, small as it was.

Related Characters: George W. Hurstwood
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

[Carrie] felt Hurstwood’s passion as a delightful background to her own achievement, and she wondered what he would have to say […] She was now experiencing the first shades of feeling of that subtle change which removes one out of the ranks of the suppliants into the lines of the dispensers of charity.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

The manager was no fool to be led blindly away by such an errant proposition as this, but his situation was peculiar. Wine was in his veins. It had crept up into his head and given him a warm view of the situation. It also coloured the possibilities of ten thousand for him. He could see great opportunities with that. He could get Carrie.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

The progress of the train was having a great deal to do with the solution of this difficult situation. The speeding wheels and disappearing country put Chicago farther and farther behind. Carrie could feel that she was being borne a long distance off—that the engine was making an almost through run to some distant city. She felt at times as if she could cry out and make such a row that some one would come to her aid; at other times it seemed an almost useless thing—so far was she from any aid, no matter what she did. All the while Hurstwood was endeavouring to formulate his plea in such a way that it would strike home and bring her into sympathy with him.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

This man, to whose bosom she was being pressed, was strong; he was passionate, he loved her, and she was alone. If she did not turn to him—accept of his love—where else might she go? Her resistance half dissolved in the flood of his strong feeling.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is very evident that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York. In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires were not numerous. The rich had not become so conspicuously rich as to drown all moderate incomes in obscurity. […] In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics and trade. In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were numerous. The sea was already full of whales. A common fish must needs disappear wholly from view—remain unseen. In other words, Hurstwood was nothing.

Related Characters: George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

In all Carrie’s experience she had never seen anything like [Sherry’s]. In the whole time she had been in New York Hurstwood’s modified state had not permitted his bringing her to such a place. There was an almost indescribable atmosphere about it which convinced the newcomer that this was the proper thing. Here was the place where the matter of expense limited the patrons to the moneyed or pleasure- loving class.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 223
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

That night he felt a cold coming on and took quinine. He was feverish until morning, and sat about the next day while Carrie waited on him. He was a helpless creature in sickness, not very handsome in a dull-coloured bath gown and his hair uncombed. He looked haggard about the eyes and quite old. Carrie noticed this, and it did not appeal to her. She wanted to be good-natured and sympathetic, but something about the man held her aloof.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Her need of clothes—to say nothing of her desire for ornaments— grew rapidly as the fact developed that for all her work she was not to have them. The sympathy she felt for Hurstwood, at the time he asked her to tide him over, vanished with these newer urgings of decency. He was not always renewing his request, but this love of good appearance was. It insisted, and Carrie wished to satisfy it, wished more and more that Hurstwood was not in the way.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 271
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47 Quotes

It seemed as if he thought a while, for now [Hurstwood] arose and turned the gas out, standing calmly in the blackness, hidden from view. After a few moments, in which he reviewed nothing, but merely hesitated, he turned the gas on again, but applied no match. Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room. When the odour reached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for the bed.

“What’s the use?” he said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.

Related Characters: George W. Hurstwood (speaker)
Page Number: 350
Explanation and Analysis:
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George W. Hurstwood Quotes in Sister Carrie

The Sister Carrie quotes below are all either spoken by George W. Hurstwood or refer to George W. Hurstwood. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Urban Life and Decay Theme Icon
).
Chapter 14 Quotes

[Drouet] was simply letting things drift because he preferred the free round of his present state to any legal trammellings. In contrast, Hurstwood appeared strong and sincere. He had no easy manner of putting her off. He sympathised with her and showed her what her true value was. He needed her, while Drouet did not care.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood, Charles H. Drouet
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

[Hurstwood] was evidently a light among them, reflecting in his personality the ambitions of those who greeted him. He was acknowledged, fawned upon, in a way lionised. Through it all one could see the standing of the man. It was greatness in a way, small as it was.

Related Characters: George W. Hurstwood
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

[Carrie] felt Hurstwood’s passion as a delightful background to her own achievement, and she wondered what he would have to say […] She was now experiencing the first shades of feeling of that subtle change which removes one out of the ranks of the suppliants into the lines of the dispensers of charity.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

The manager was no fool to be led blindly away by such an errant proposition as this, but his situation was peculiar. Wine was in his veins. It had crept up into his head and given him a warm view of the situation. It also coloured the possibilities of ten thousand for him. He could see great opportunities with that. He could get Carrie.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

The progress of the train was having a great deal to do with the solution of this difficult situation. The speeding wheels and disappearing country put Chicago farther and farther behind. Carrie could feel that she was being borne a long distance off—that the engine was making an almost through run to some distant city. She felt at times as if she could cry out and make such a row that some one would come to her aid; at other times it seemed an almost useless thing—so far was she from any aid, no matter what she did. All the while Hurstwood was endeavouring to formulate his plea in such a way that it would strike home and bring her into sympathy with him.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

This man, to whose bosom she was being pressed, was strong; he was passionate, he loved her, and she was alone. If she did not turn to him—accept of his love—where else might she go? Her resistance half dissolved in the flood of his strong feeling.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is very evident that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York. In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires were not numerous. The rich had not become so conspicuously rich as to drown all moderate incomes in obscurity. […] In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics and trade. In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were numerous. The sea was already full of whales. A common fish must needs disappear wholly from view—remain unseen. In other words, Hurstwood was nothing.

Related Characters: George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

In all Carrie’s experience she had never seen anything like [Sherry’s]. In the whole time she had been in New York Hurstwood’s modified state had not permitted his bringing her to such a place. There was an almost indescribable atmosphere about it which convinced the newcomer that this was the proper thing. Here was the place where the matter of expense limited the patrons to the moneyed or pleasure- loving class.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 223
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

That night he felt a cold coming on and took quinine. He was feverish until morning, and sat about the next day while Carrie waited on him. He was a helpless creature in sickness, not very handsome in a dull-coloured bath gown and his hair uncombed. He looked haggard about the eyes and quite old. Carrie noticed this, and it did not appeal to her. She wanted to be good-natured and sympathetic, but something about the man held her aloof.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Her need of clothes—to say nothing of her desire for ornaments— grew rapidly as the fact developed that for all her work she was not to have them. The sympathy she felt for Hurstwood, at the time he asked her to tide him over, vanished with these newer urgings of decency. He was not always renewing his request, but this love of good appearance was. It insisted, and Carrie wished to satisfy it, wished more and more that Hurstwood was not in the way.

Related Characters: Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, George W. Hurstwood
Related Symbols: The City
Page Number: 271
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47 Quotes

It seemed as if he thought a while, for now [Hurstwood] arose and turned the gas out, standing calmly in the blackness, hidden from view. After a few moments, in which he reviewed nothing, but merely hesitated, he turned the gas on again, but applied no match. Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room. When the odour reached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for the bed.

“What’s the use?” he said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.

Related Characters: George W. Hurstwood (speaker)
Page Number: 350
Explanation and Analysis: