Character Clues

Character Analysis

Clothing

Hurstwood's clothes were particularly new and rich in appearance…His cravat was a shiny combination of silken threads, not loud, not inconspicuous. What he wore did not strike the eye so forcibly as that which Drouet had on, but Carrie could see the elegance of the material.
Hurstwood's shoes were of soft, black, calf, polished only to a dull shine. Drouet wore patent leather, but Carrie could not help feeling that there was a distinction in favour of the soft leather, where all else was so rich. (10.44)

Clothes are a huge deal in Sister Carrie. Not only do they convey whether a character is rich or poor, they tell us just how much richer or poorer the character is compared to other characters, as in this passage where Carrie can tell at a glance that Hurstwood is clearly Drouet's social superior. As clear social markers, clothes in this novel denote subtle but meaningful distinctions in the relative social standings of characters.

In short: Does a character have so much cash that he can afford to blow his nose with a twenty dollar bill, or does he merely have enough money to buy the good brand of peanut butter? Look no further than his shoes for the answer.

Direct Characterization

[Carrie] could scarcely toss her head gracefully. Her hands were almost ineffectual. The feet, though small, were set flatly. And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things. (1.4)

These moments of directly telling us about a character sure do cover a lot of ground: we learn that Carrie has both small feet and big ambitions in a matter of a few sentences. But Dreiser's way of giving us small details about a character's appearance in conjunction with their deepest hopes and desires is also a way of letting us know that the two are often linked. As we learn, Carrie's meek and awkward appearance depicted in the above passage must be overcome if she is to achieve her goal of gaining in material things.

Direct characterizations in the novel push us to make connections between a character's exterior and interior lives.

Social Status

[Hurstwood] kept a horse and neat trap, had his wife and two children, who were well established in a neat house on the North Side near Lincoln Park, and was altogether a very acceptable individual of our great American upper class—the first grade below the luxuriously rich. (5.12)

[Mr. and Mrs. Hale] were a sort very common in America to-day, who live respectably from hand to mouth. Hale received a salary of forty-five dollars a week. (11.12)

Talk about nosy. From practically the moment we meet any new character in this novel, our narrator is quick to give us a peek into that character's bank account. With social status such a priority in these descriptions, our impressions of each character can't help but be colored by what we first learn of their social status.