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At the time of its first publication the novel caused a minor scandal, and Dreiser had difficulty finding a publisher for it. This was due to the blurred division line between good and bad in the plot and the fact that at the end Carrie is rewarded rather than punished for her immoral life. Although Dreiser's moralising narrator does assert that, despite the fame and the money she has amassed, Carrie will not be able to achieve peace of mind in her life, the apparent lack of poetic justice -- the notion that immorality should pay in the end, even if only up to a point -- was a concept the reading public were altogether unused to at the time.
Leaving her rural Wisconsin home, 18 year-old Caroline Meeber heads for Chicago, where she wants to live with her older sister's family. Soon, however, Carrie finds out that working in a sweatshop and living in a squalid and overcrowded apartment is not what she wants. When she meets Drouet again, a travelling salesman whose acquaintance she already made on the train to Chicago, she readily leaves behind her family—they never see "Sister Carrie" again—when he offers to look after her. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment in return for her favours. Through Drouet, Carrie meets Hurstwood, the manager of a respectable bar. From the moment he sets eyes on her, Hurstwood is infatuated with the young girl, whereas for Carrie Hurstwood is just a wealthy man past the prime of life. Before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting secretly in the expanding, anonymous city. Although Hurstwood has a family and Carrie might conclude that he does, the lovers never talk about it, and it never seems to occur to Carry to ask.
One night, at his job, Hurstwood is presented with the opportunity to embezzle a large sum of money. He succumbs to the temptation, and decides on the spur of the moment to leave everything behind and start a new life with Carrie. Under a pretext he lures Carrie onto a northbound train and escapes with her to Canada. After a while his guilty conscience makes him pay back most of the money, but there is no way he could return to his former life, so the couple eventually decide to move to the East coast.
The second part of the book is set in New York. Hurstwood and Carrie rent a flat where they live as man and wife under an assumed name. Gradually, Hurstwood realizes that finding a new job is not easy at all. As his money is slowly running out, the couple have to start economizing, which Carrie does not like at all. She starts looking for a job herself and finds employment at one of the many theatres. Her rise to stardom is sharply contrasted with Hurstwood's downfall: She leaves him, and the rapidly ageing Hurstwood, overwhelmed by apathy, is left all alone, without a job and without any money. At one point, during a strike, he even works as a scab driving a Brooklyn streetcar. He joins the homeless of New York and finally, in some cheap hotel, puts an end to his life.
Sister Carrie was filmed in 1952 as Carrie by William WylerWilliam Wyler ( July 1, 1902 July 27, 1981) was a successful and award-winning motion picture director. He was born in Mulhouse, France, the nephew of Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures. His family connections served him in good stead, as he starring Jennifer JonesJennifer Jones (born Phyllis Flora Isley on March 2, 1919 in Tulsa, Oklahoma), is an actress created within the studio system by producer David O. She appeared in Selznick's production Duel in the Sun in 1946. Jones married Selznick and stayed with him un in the title role and Laurence OlivierCarl Van Vechten Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier OM ( May 22, 1907 July 11, 1989) was an English actor and director, esteemed by many as the greatest actor of the 20th century. Life Laurence Olivier was born in Dorking, Sussex. He attended the Centra as Hurstwood. The movie must of course not be confused with Stephen KingThis page is about Stephen Edwin King, the writer. There is also Stephen King, a convicted British paedophile. Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is a prolific American author best known for his horror novels. King's books have been extremely po's novel and Brian De PalmaBrian De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director. His works explore themes of suspense, murder, obsession, and psychiatric disorders, among others. De Palma's cinematic style is considered by many as a successor to that of Alfred Hitc's 1976 film version CarrieIn 1952, a film of Theodore Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie was made under the title Carrie; for that film, see: Sister Carrie. For the digital library see Carrie (digital library). Carrie ( 1974) was Stephen King's first published novel. Plot The book uses, which is not a remakeIn cinema, a remake is a work that has the same story, and often the same title, as a work that was made earlier. In the history of cinema, remakes have generally been considered inferior to the earlier versions by film critics and cinema-goers alike, but of Wyler's movie.