In Sister Carrie, the town is the narrator. This is the main focus of the book and it has a huge impact on all who are influenced by its magnitude. For some, it is a beacon of hope and a promised land of wealth and opportunity, while for others, its walls close in more every day as they struggle against poverty and the effects of poverty. Belonging to a low or middle class. The city can make or break a person; It’s truly a matter of survival of the fittest. The city will reveal a tragic flaw in a person, or be the foundation of extreme success. The city, with all its material prospects and consumer culture, is a combination of utopia and tragic disappointment, where the men who influence it make Carrie a rags-to-riches success story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In Chicago, Carrie feels the weight of desire upon her as she searches for a job. She does not want to blend in with the crowd of city dwellers, those who are simple and ordinary, but she aspires to stand out. She envies the clothes and fine material possessions that women from nobler backgrounds display and cannot bring herself to adjust to the fact that she is beneath them. This is true even when she is looking for a salary and has nothing. “To avoid a certain indefinable shame that she felt at being caught spying for a position, she hastened her pace and assumed an air of indifference supposedly common to someone in a race (17).” While working in a shoe factory, she begins to become a product of her environment, truly discouraged and depressed by the women and senseless gossip around her. She finds ordinary life in a sweatshop unbearable and knows that city life has another purpose in store for her. Carrie sells herself twenty dollars to Drouet, which she sees as an opportunity to improve her social status. Her desire for material pleasure overrides her sense of morality: “When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she quickly adopts the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. (1)." It is the town standard that sets this precedent, and Carrie, yearning to find her identity through the cosmopolitan standard, is saved by men like Drouet and Hurstwood. She becomes a product of her environment by adapting the personality that Drouet wants for her and becomes the reflection of masculine desire Carrie plays her roles convincingly before entering stage life: from the beauty desired by men, to the woman who has no other. opinion than that of material nature, through a mistress and a wife While losing her individuality, these roles help her gain independence, a key element that will prepare her to thrive in urban life. orders because she knows that she will get money and material goods, which will distinguish her from the mundane while blending into the upper class, and that is where she will find her place Once Carrie. having tasted a better life, she becomes immune to the life she left behind. A homeless man asks Drouet for change for a place to sleep. Drout "handed over a penny with a feeling of pity rising in his heart. Hurstwood barely noticed the incident. Carrie quickly forgot (135)." This is the point of no return, his innocence gone, replaced by the wealth and fortune the town holds. "She realized... how much the city contained --- wealth, fashion, ease --- every adornment for women (22)..." She compromises her..