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   parkerlee Teacher
   

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   Dreiser maintains a nonchalent, detached tone throughout the novel. This is done to banalize the protagonist's compromising choices to 'assure her place' in urban society as well as to dedramatize Hurstwood's suicide. The absence of moral judgement also corresponds to the anonymity and alienation of 'big city' living:

   Hurstwood’s destitution and matter-of-fact death seem less melodramatic than the tacked on apostrophe sentimentalizing Carrie as no Saved Sinner or Lost Soul but rather as the Beautiful Dreamer. The awkwardness, repetition, and cliches of Dreiserian prose often grate on finetuned sensibilities.... For all this, the author retains the power to endow his factories, hotels, department stores, slums, theaters, and restaurants with an extraordinary sense of life.

                     -from enotes 'Overview of Sister Carrie'

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   http://www.enotes.com/sister-carrie/overview-sister-carrie

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   Posted by parkerlee on Wednesday October 1, 2008 at 9:11 AM