A private detective shows up in Montreal, and Hurstwood returns the money in return for not being charged. When they arrive in Montreal, Carrie agrees to stay only when Hurstwood promises to marry her. He tricks Carrie into coming with him to Canada. Interpreting the incident as a sign, Hurstwood takes the money-nearly $10,000-and flees. As he plays with the bundles of cash, the safe’s door shuts accidentally. The next night, as an inebriated Hurstwood closes up the bar, he notices the safe has been left open by mistake. When Drouet tells a shocked Carrie that Hurstwood is married, Carrie writes a letter telling Hurstwood she wants nothing to do with him. Hurstwood fears he will be financially ruined. Drouet moves out, and Hurstwood’s wife files for divorce. Then, both Drouet and Hurstwood’s wife find out about Carrie and Hurstwood’s clandestine affair. Carrie impresses Drouet and the critics with her acting. What Carrie does not know, however, is that Hurstwood is married with two teenaged children.ĭrouet, in his efforts to mentor Carrie in the cultural ways of the city, volunteers her to perform in a theater production at his lodge. Soon, Carrie and Hurstwood begin to see each other behind Drouet’s back. Drouet, though a tiresome egomaniac, supports Carrie and teaches her how to dress and act with refinement.ĭrouet invites over a friend, George Hurstwood, a bartender at a high-class saloon. Within a few weeks, Carries moves in with Drouet.

Drouet treats her to a lavish lunch and convinces her to leave her sister’s by promising her a life of comfort. The illness costs her the job.įearing she might have to go back home, Carrie happens to run into Charles Drouet again. With winter, conditions on the factory floor worsen, and within a few weeks Carrie comes down with pneumonia. The conditions are deplorable, the hours long, and the pay poor. The only work Carrie finds, however, is in a factory making shoes. The couple assume Carrie will pay rent once she finds work. Before they part in the Chicago train station, they promise to meet again.Ĭarrie stays with her sister, Minnie, and Minnie’s husband and baby. On the train ride, she meets a salesman named Charles Drouet who impresses her with his charm, his fashionable clothes, and his animated chatter. 18-year-old Caroline Meeber-nicknamed “Sister Carrie”-leaves her family and her small-town home in Wisconsin and heads to Chicago to find success and happiness. This study guide uses the 2018 Digireads paperback edition. Like Mark Twain before him and Kurt Vonnegut after him, Dreiser trained an uncompromising moral awareness on a culture and a nation that had fallen far short of its ideals by confusing opportunity with opportunism. The importance of the novel and of Dreiser would be confirmed nearly three decades later when Dreiser was shortlisted to become the first American writer awarded the Nobel Prize.

Sister carrie plot