The Female Experience of the American Dream in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900)

Authors

  • Aziz Rabéa Department of English Mouloud MAMMERI University of Tizi-Ouzou

Abstract

The aim of the present article is to study American woman’s experience of the American Dream in the turn of the twentieth century (the period known as the Progressive Era), through the analysis of the dreams of the main female character Carrie Meeber in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900). Dreiser, known as the author of woman, explores in this novel the issue of woman within the urban environment, by presenting her as being modern, with materialistic dreams, which determined her faith and actions, and detached her from her morals and traditions in favor of money and fame.

Keywords: Woman, the U.S.A., Progressive Era, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, Materialism, Modernity, American Dream.

References

Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie (1900). London: Penguin Books. 1994.

Hochman, Barbara. “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Actress: The Rewards of Representation in Sister Carrie”, in Pizer Donald. New Essays on Sister Carrie. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. 1991.

Jin, Rong. “Sister Carrie in Consumer Society as Seen from Deception within Non-verbal and Verbal Framework and the Fulfillment of Desires”, in Canadian Social Science. Vol.3 No.6. Canada: December 2007.

Kaplan, Amy. The Social Construction of American Realism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1988.

Li, Ma. “The Analysis of the Symbols of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie”. China Jiaotong University. Volume 4. No 9 1539-8080 (serial No 36). US-China Foreign Language, Issn. USA. 2006.

Pizer, Donald. New Essays on Sister Carrie. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.1991.

Riggiou, Thomas. “Carrie’s Blues,” in Pizer Donald. New Essays on Sister Carrie. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. 1991.

Wald Priscilla. “Dreiser’s Sociological Vision” (1991), in The Cambridge Companion to Theodore Dreiser. Ed. Leonard Cassuto and Clare Virginia Eby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004.

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Published

2018-06-19

How to Cite

Rabéa, A. (2018). The Female Experience of the American Dream in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900). ANGLISTICUM. Journal of the Association-Institute for English Language and American Studies, 7(5), 21–29. Retrieved from https://www.anglisticum.org.mk/index.php/IJLLIS/article/view/1714

Issue

Section

Volume 7, No.5, May, 2018