Throughout the novel, Carrie is presented as "a lone figure in a tossing, thoughtless sea," and the repeated appearance of related metaphors shows Carrie to be almost without blame for her compromising morality, her adultery, and her lack of natural feeling.īecause of the conflicts within her - between "the flesh" and "the spirit," or the pursuit of pleasure and her inherited morality - Carrie is never able to make decisions and thus finds herself continually exploited by others. She does make a crucial break from Hurstwood in New York, but by that time her fate has been decided. Carrie has little influence over the events of the novel, and her actions and decisions are for the most part "passive." She is sent to Chicago by her parents, seduced by Drouet, and abducted by Hurstwood. She is the result of Dreiser's desire to portray "life as it is," sympathetically showing imperfect humanity in an uncertain world. She is not notably courageous, honest, intelligent, or unselfish. Carrie is the central character of the novel, but in many ways she is no ordinary protagonist.
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