Waterman 1

Kevin Waterman
American Novel II
Dr. Gray
19 October 2008

Dreiser’s Folly:
Sister Carrie & Capitalism as a Means to Individual Liberty for Women

Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is renowned for many things: its style, its true to life

portrayals of urban environments, and, in particular, what many see as a savagely biting critique

of capitalism. While it has long been considered that Dreiser’s intent was to highlight the

supposed evils of capitalism, a fact attested to by many of his other writings, a close examination

of the novel finds that he repeatedly undercuts his critique. Some critics, most notably Walter

Benn Michaels, have identified some of these countervailing elements, but have incorrectly

posited that they amount to an endorsement by Dreiser of the economic system of desire. This

paper will endeavor to demonstrate that Dreiser’s and Ames’s sentiments regarding capitalism

and desire are one and the same, and that the error of Dreiser, stems from a misunderstanding of

capitalism, namely its effects as a liberating force, resulting in his accurately reporting these

effects while being oblivious to their significance. Concerning capitalism as a liberating force the

focus will be on women and how the novel displays women being freed from oppression through

the opportunity for economic self-sufficiency afforded by capitalism.

While Michaels makes a strong case for re-interpreting Sister Carrie’s never having been

intended by Dreiser to be opposed to capitalism, it is a case that ultimately seems wanting.

Michaels’ argument is rooted heavily around Dreiser’s portrayal of the role of desire in society.

His essay “Sister Carrie’s Popular Economy,” suggests that “For him [Dreiser]…capitalism is an

economy of desire, but the utopian alternative, the refuge from want that Howells found so

attractive, represents to Dreiser only death and disaster” (386). This economy of desire is a
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system rooted in endless want, a want that “exceeding and outstripping any possible object” in

contrast to what Michaels describes as “an economy of scarcity, in which power, happiness, and

moral virtue are all seen to depend finally on minimizing desire” (376). There is something to be

said for this argument, particularly his use of Hurstwood as the prime example of such sentiment.

The essay highlights Hurstwood’s role as an example of the necessity of desire by

examining the period of his decline. Once Hurstwood and Carrie make their way to New York

Hurstwood steadily degenerates; Michaels is quite right in noting that this fall “is not a function

of Hurstwood’s inability to get what he wants, it is a function of inability to want badly enough”

(383). From the start of their settling, Hurstwood himself continually settles for less than he once

had. For the first three years, “Hurstwood had been moving along in an even path. There was no

apparent slope downward, and distinctly none upward” (Dreiser 230); he frequents less

illustrious locations out of fear of meeting old acquaintances, and is solely concerned with the

maintenance of something approaching his previous lifestyle.

This refusal to strive for more is the end cause of his decline into poverty. Since

Hurstwood’s sole concern was something approaching his old lifestyle, he loses any drive when

he comes to be satisfied with his current lot. The result is of course that business suffers and

when it fails he makes the most half-hearted of efforts to find new work, eventually settling for a

life of degeneracy. He lets his appearance go, wears old clothes, and soon ceases to even look for

work. When he finally does, running a car during the motormen strike, he fails to even last a day,

and within a short while is homeless, a part of the Captain’s crew. His story finally ends when he

can not bring himself to even want enough to desire life and commits suicide in a cheap hotel

room.

Michaels highlights this decline as the crux of Dreiser’s argument for capitalism by
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positioning this case in contrast to his one-time de facto wife, Carrie

Meeber/Drouet/Madenda/Wheeler. If Hurstwood is the epitome of desire stagnated and in

decline, Carrie is desire that never ceases to strive for more. From the start of the novel she is

described in terms of desire:

Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was, nevertheless, her guiding

characteristic…she was a fair example of the middle American class – two generations

removed from the emigrant. Books were beyond her interest – knowledge a sealed book.

In the intuitive graces she was still crude…And yet she was interested in her charms,

quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things. (2)

This is the fundamental, unchanged core of who Carrie is throughout the entire novel; her edges

may be refined, her exterior polished, but throughout it all, she is still the “half-equipped little

knight” (2) constantly tilting at a windmill just peeking above the horizon.

It is this desire, perhaps even lust for greater material comfort that pulls Carrie along

through the novel. She was drawn to Chicago by it, and from there into her first employment in

the shoe factory. When that job was lost, her continually craving sense of desire kept her in the

city, till it led to her moving in with Drouet. Material craving continued to improve her

circumstances, drawing her to the more affluent Hurstwood, and from his companionship to

employment. By the time the novel closes, her ability to desire more has pulled her to the highest

echelons of society; she finds herself still wanting more and better – she is still the knight whose

quest is “forever to be the pursuit of that radiance of delight which tints the distant hilltops of the

world” (354).

In both cases, Michaels' analysis is correct. Hurstwood’s decline is directly attributable to

his failures of desire and Carrie’s the strength of hers. And yet, for all the strength and insight of
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such analysis “Sister Carrie’s Popular Economy” still misreads Dreiser’s intent in the novel.

Throughout the essay Michaels posits that “The power of Sister Carrie…derives not from its

scathing ‘picture’ of capitalist ‘conditions’ but from its unabashed and extraordinarily literal

acceptance of the economy that produced those conditions” (376-377). Were he to stop there he

would be quite right. He takes this point further though, endeavoring to separate Ames from the

role critics like Ellen Moers and Donald Pizer have identified him as having, that of mouthpiece

for Dreiser’s moral message of the novel.

Michaels’ argument on this point is weak. He spends pages explicating the outlook of

Ames, connecting it to the tradition of the realist William Dean Howells. This view is effectively

the same that Ames espouses when he tells Carrie “The world is full of desirable situations,

but…[i]t doesn’t do us any good to wring our hands over the far-off things” (Dreiser 340). It is a

philosophy that condemns desire as a disastrous force that leads to destruction and ruin and

satisfaction with the status quo as the best path to a rewarding, happy life. Michaels would have

us consider Dreiser’s novel a rejection of this Howellsian ideal, an assertion upon which critic

Kevin McNamara rightly calls readers and critics to be suspicious (540).

McNamara proceeds from there to engage in a lengthy and somewhat pointlessly

convoluted New Historicist argument, one that reflects a fundamentally flawed view of laissez-

faire economics and the role and status of the individual in such an economy. This is particularly

true when the flaw in Michaels’ argument can be discerned by a careful examination of the text

of Sister Carrie to test for authorial intent and whether Dreiser meant for the reader to draw

moral guidance from Carrie. If it is Carrie, then Michaels is correct. However, the evidence of

the text repeatedly points to Carrie being a poor example to follow, and the economic system a

fundamentally flawed one, a fact that invalidates much of Michaels’ repudiation of Moers and
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others of her school.

The case for Dreiser’s disapproval of Carrie seems blatantly obvious. As Ellen Moers

notes in “Dreiser’s Wisdom,” Dreiser was an extremely well-read individual who placed a high

value on intellectual pursuits, or as Moers phrases it “a serious thinker, not a dealer in half-baked

clichés (63). He was well versed in physical sciences, sociology, and, as his frequent editorial

comments make clear, poorly written though they are, moral philosophy. He was a man most

definitely interested in thoughts of the most advanced minds. If such is the case, and Moers

makes clear it is, then Dreiser’s statement that “It is the unintellectual miser who sweats blood at

the loss of a hundred dollars. It is the Epictetus who smiles when the last vestige of physical

welfare is removed” (232) makes it hard to suggest that he does not intend Ames, with his

highbrow, intellectual sentiments, to be the proper model for the reader to follow. This is

particularly true since the line is one of Dreiser’s many editorial comments – unquestionably

expressions of authorial intent.

Furthermore, if Dreiser had intended the novel to endorse an economy of desire, it seems

odd that he would devote as much time as he does to critiquing the institutions of capitalism that

enable and drive such an economy. Take Carrie’s work in the shoe factory. Dreiser only focuses

on the negative aspects of it: the dull monotony in which “dull, complaining muscles, fixed in an

eternal position and performing a single mechanical movement” (28), the “sordid atmosphere” of

the washrooms (29), the toil that leaves Carrie with “arms aching and her limbs stiff” (30), the

“ogre” of a foreman (30), and the general crudeness of her fellow employees. His every account

of her employment showcases only its meanness and physically straining qualities.

There is another key point in perceiving Dreiser’s critique of capitalism and the economy

of desire. That point is the definition of money. At the beginning of Chapter VII Dreiser indulges
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in a lengthy editorial aside on the proper definition of money. He first proffers that money is a

“moral due…it should be paid out as honestly stored energy, and not a usurped privilege” (45), a

meaning rooted in something approaching Marx’s Labor Theory of Value. He then offers a more

relative statement of money’s value, where money’s worth is only connected to its ability to be

used and its comparative value between buyer and spender (46), an understanding closer to the

Lockean perception of the nature and function of money. And finally he offers a third definition,

“the popular understanding” that is held by Carrie: “‘Money: something everybody else has and I

must get” (45). Each definition holds a particular relationship to capitalism; the first holds the

seeds of a Marxist critique, the second the definition of the capitalist function of money, and the

third an endorsement of the economy of desire, a point Michaels opens his essay with (373).

Michaels is quite right in perceiving the implicit endorsement of an economy of desire in

Carrie’s understanding of money – but he automatically assumes that, because Carrie holds that

view, Dreiser intended it to be the message the novel endorses, even when Dreiser’s editorial

comment opening the chapter clearly indicates his support for a labor-based theory of monetary

value.

That is the crux of Michaels’ error. It is not that Sister Carrie does not endorse capitalism

and an economy of desire – it does – but in that he gives too much credit to Dreiser for these

tendencies. A careful reading of the novel and of Dreiser’s own readings and thoughts makes

abundantly clear he feels primarily disgust, with perhaps some sympathy for Carrie, but he most

certainly does not share her views, nor does he intend for readers to follow her example. What

then explains the numerous points where Sister Carrie seems to come out for capitalism? Dreiser

was a sloppy writer, a point few critics disagree on, and in spite of his wide range of knowledge,

he failed to understand the fundamentals of the capitalist economic system, and as such
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unintentionally vindicated it through the novel.

Since Michaels has more than thoroughly explicated how Sister Carrie endorses an

economy of desire there is little to be gained from exploring this avenue. However, there is

another aspect of the novel that has seen little, if any critical attention – how capitalism expands

individual liberty, especially for women. There are numerous points throughout the novel where

women come in contact with capitalism, and in every single case they come out the better for it,

in spite of Dreiser’s efforts to suggest otherwise.

Consider the case of the other girls at the shoe factory. Through Carrie, Dreiser made

clear the rough conditions of the factory. Nor is Carrie the only girl to find the conditions too

hard; one of the other girls comments that “‘What with the stipend and being up late, it’s too

much for me health’” (38). At first glance there is nothing redeeming about the factory, between

its grueling conditions and the common sort of people who work there. However a closer

examination and a little critical thought paints quite a different picture.

The other women working in the factory seem fairly happy. Obviously they do not care

for their jobs, but neither are they miserable. They jest with the other women and with the men at

the factory. More importantly, as Carrie later finds out, “they [the other women] had more of

their earnings to use for themselves than she did. They had young men…who took them out”

(40). At first glance this is seemingly trivial. However, in light of societal conditions at the time,

it is monumental. Women still held relatively few rights, but these two facts alone are massive

steps forward in the procurement of liberty; in years past women were mere possessions, to be

given by their fathers to their husbands. However in Sister Carrie women have exponentially

more freedom. Free to make money for themselves they have the resources to be independent of

any man’s will, and free from their fathers’ patriarchal tyranny they can choose to associate with
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whatever men they wish. Both of these large steps forward would have been impossible without

the capitalist system Dreiser so roundly abuses throughout the novel.

The case for capitalism as a liberating force is even clearer with regards to Mrs.

Hurstwood. Once evidence of her husband’s infidelity is made clear (although she is more

concerned with his not meeting his social obligations to her rather than with his conjugal

infidelities) she immediately seizes the upper hand in their relationship. She effectively locks

him out of the home and refuses to allow his return until he yields and pays her the money she

wants for a trip to Waukesha. At this point, recognizing her absolute power over Hurstwood, she

presses her advantage even further, hiring a group of lawyers to sue Hurstwood for divorce, a

losing scenario in which he knows if he does not meet with the lawyers “they would sue him

promptly” but if he did meet with them “he would be offered terms that would make his blood

boil”(170). Even today it is somewhat surprising to see a woman acting with such strength in a

divorce case, particularly when the woman is a homemaker. The source of her strength is rooted

in capitalism – private property ownership.

As Hurstwood notes near the beginning of his marital problems, all of their property is in

her name (163). This ownership gives her the financial security to be free to divorce her husband

without fear, whereas in times past, lack of means and property kept women tied to even the

worst husbands since it was still preferable to being cast out into the world without work or

resources. The capitalist system of widespread property ownership alters this dynamic however,

giving her, and all women, the possibility of being free to choose their own lives, assured in their

ability to continue in economic security. Mrs. Hurstwood, a petty, disagreeable, spendthrift shrew

may not be the best example of this liberation, but she does perfectly showcase the benefits all

women gain access to under a capitalist system.

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There is however no greater example of capitalism’s liberating power than Carrie herself.

She enters the novel a poor girl from the country. Finding work, she meagerly sustains herself

until, trading on her natural advantages, she advances in monetary and social status by moving in

with Drouet. Further capitalizing on her talents, she moves to the stage, and in doing so further

advances herself by putting Hurstwood under her spell. After they relocate in New York, she

steadily advances in power in the household until she is the dominant decision maker. Finally,

she takes to the stage once again. In doing so she liberates herself of any reliance upon others;

she feeds, clothes, and houses herself on her own efforts, relieving herself of any responsibility

to the increasingly apathetic Hurstwood. She excels on the stage, quickly moving from simple

sufficiency to extreme material success. At this point, where the novel closes she has become

freer than any other person in the novel (save perhaps Ames or some of the other seemingly old

money figures).

Dreiser seeks to undercut this success in the final lines of the novel. He highlights her

supposed unhappiness, ending the novel with the editorial comment “Know, then, that for you

there is neither surfeit nor content. In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you

long, alone. In your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may

never feel” (355). Obviously he intended this to be a resounding attack on the capitalist system

and the economy of desire that brought Carrie to that point. And yet, even in this effort, he

inadvertently undercuts himself. Considering Carrie’s history the unhappiness will likely only be

temporary. And even if not, she may be unhappy, but what unhappiness is this compared to the

near slavery her gender knew but a few years before? Carrie is immensely free, freer than most

women in history to that point. The country girl, once doomed to a life never ranging more than

ten miles from where she was born, fated to live a life much the same as her mother’s and her
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mother’s before her, was able, through the capitalist system, to be truly free. She associates with

the men she wants to, leaves them when she wishes, and in every other way is truly the master of

her own destiny.

In conclusion, Dreiser’s effort to attack capitalism through Sister Carrie is a spirited, but

ultimately futile effort. As Walter Benn Michaels demonstrates, but incorrectly attributes to

Dreiser’s intent, in “Sister Carrie’s Popular Economy,” the novel functions as a highly effective

endorsement of the economy of desire that drives the capitalist system. Further analysis makes

clear that the novel does a superb job of showing capitalism as an institution that greatly

expanded freedom and opportunity for women. In both cases Dreiser manages to accurately

portray these truths about capitalism, but remains completely oblivious to them as he does so.
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Works Cited

Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2006. 1-355.

McNamara, Kevin R. “The Ames of the Good Society: Sister Carrie and Social Engineering.”

3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2006. 537-554.

Michaels, Walter Benn. “Sister Carrie’s Popular Economy.” Critical Inquiry 7 (1980): 373-390.

Moers, Ellen. “Dreiser’s Wisdom. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 11 (1977): 63-65.