by Lindsay Totty

From Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Nominated by Natalie Pappas

Nothing is certain, but I'm about 99.9% sure that Theodore Dreiser didn't create Sister Carrie as a heroine. In the book of the same name, Carrie moves to the big city of Chicago, cohabits with a traveling salesman, runs away with the embezzling manager of a bar, and becomes a chorus girl. She ends up "amid the tinsel and shine" of Broadway, basking in fame but still searching for something, dreaming about "happiness [that she] may never feel."

 

Why do I admire Carrie? She could have put herself out of her misery a la Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina. But she didn't. She kept going, she refused to accept poverty, she got her own job and became something unique — maybe not something praiseworthy, even in Dreiser's eyes — but the girl had some things going for her: determination, independence and spunk!