『시스터 캐리』에 나타난 도시 공간 읽기: 물질주의와 인간 욕망의 양상

초록

This paper analyzes how the mechanism of urban space influences individuals in Sister Carrie. At the end of the 19th century, as American cities went through a rapid growth and development of industrialization, consequent problems, such as materialism, alienation of human beings, and the upsurge of the poor in cities, emerged as the dark side to urban life. Individuals had to deal with those urban problems as part of their life in the city. Sister Carrie is full of insightful descriptions about urban space and individual lifestyles peculiar to the city. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser closely observes how a city influences an individual's fate through the mechanism of urban materialism, and then describes how a city changes an individual's life by depicting the lives of those who succeed and those who fail. The story begins with Carrie, a young girl born and raised in a country village, comes to Chicago, a metropolitan city, to find a job. As Carrie, who has not known anything about urban life, begins to experience the life in a big city, she comes to have her own desires. Druet and Husrstwood represent an urban lifestyle characterized by materialism and desire for possession. Represented as components of a big city, these characters are determined by the way a city works. Hurstwood commits suicide when he cannot cope with urban life in New York. By contrast, even though she succeeds in possessing what she has had a desire for, Carrie feels meaningless and futile in the end. Conclusively, the novel suggests that materialistic success does not necessarily mean an ultimate goal of life, instead proposing the importance of spiritual values.

키워드