How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The entire metropolitan centre possessed a high and mighty air calculated to overawe and abash the common applicant and to make the gulf between poverty and success seem both wide and deep. (2.27)
Man, job hunting is hard enough without having to worry about the city's "high and mighty air." During the Gilded Age, the city was considered a place rich in opportunity to move up in class. But this passage makes it seem like the city's intimidating appearance seriously rattles the psyches of those seeking such opportunity.
Quote #2
As Carrie listened to this and much more of similar familiar badinage among the men and girls, she instinctively withdrew into herself. She was not used to this type, and felt that there was something hard and low about it all. (4.105)
Carrie must've read too much Shakespeare in high school and now can't bear to subject her refined ears to such "hard and low" slang. As we see here, language is an immediate marker of class position. Can you point to other examples in the novel where this is the case?
Quote #3
There was a class, however, too rich, too famous, or too successful, with whom [Hurstwood] could not attempt any familiarity of address, and with these he was professionally tactful, assuming a grave and dignified attitude, paying them the deference which would win their good feeling without in the least compromising his own bearing and opinions. (5.10)
Wow—there are people even Hurstwood is intimidated to talk to. Sister Carrie never fails to remind us of how carefully orchestrated interactions are between characters according to their perceptions of each other's class status. In other words, they have a hard time keepin' it real. It makes us wonder if any of the interactions among these characters are ever genuine.
Quote #4
For her daughter, [Mrs. Hurstwood] hoped better things. Through Jessica she might rise a little. Through George Jrs.'s possible success she might draw to herself the privilege of pointing proudly. (9.10)
We often hear the expression that people would like their kids to be more successful than they themselves have been. Usually, this seems like a nice selfless wish, but Mrs. Hurstwood's thoughts here expose that there may be a dark side to all this hoping that your little bundle of joy becomes the next Internet mogul.
Quote #5
It was an important thing to her to hear one so well-positioned and powerful speaking in this manner […] Here was this greatest mystery, the man of money and affairs sitting beside her, appealing to her. (13.46)
Carrie gets plenty of warning that having a high social status is no assurance of happiness, as this quotation from the scene in which (early) Hurstwood reveals how miserable he is indicates. Why does she still believe it will make her happy?
Quote #6
Then began one of those pointless social conversations so common in American resorts where the would-be gilded attempt to rub off gilt from those who have it in abundance. (27.42)
Hmm… If a part of becoming successful involves "rubbing off gilt" from other successful people through superficial chit chat, maybe hard work isn't the only prerequisite for success.
Quote #7
[Hurstwood] began to see as one sees a city with a wall about it […] Those inside did not care to come out to see who you were. They were so merry inside there that all those outside were forgotten, and he was on the outside. (33.7)
Walls dividing a city? That's whack. By employing the metaphor of the wall—something impenetrable and divisive—this passage suggests the exact opposite of everything the city was ideally supposed to be in the Gilded Age: a place of abundant opportunity for all.
Quote #8
On the bill-boards, too, he saw a pretty poster, showing her as the Quaker Maid, demure and dainty. More than once he stopped and looked at these, gazing at the pretty face in a sullen sort of way. His clothes were shabby, and he presented a marked contrast to all that she now seemed to be. (45.1)
Poor Hurstwood: it's pretty hard to avoid your ex when she's on a billboard. In the end, Carrie rises in class and Hurstwood falls, as this passage so strikingly illustrates. What conclusions can we draw from this outcome?
Quote #9
A study of these men in broad light proved them to be nearly all of a type. They belonged to the class that sit on the park benches during the endurable days and sleep upon them during the summer nights […] Miserable food, ill-timed and greedily eaten, had played havoc with bone and muscle. They were all pale, flabby, sunken-eyed, hollow-chested, with eyes that glinted and shone and lips that were a sickly red by contrast… They were of the class which simply floats and drifts, every wave of people washing up one, as breakers do driftwood upon a stormy shore. (47.2)
Geez, narrator—could you make us any more depressed? Does the novel suggest that people in this class of extreme poverty have any chance of class mobility?
Quote #10
Once [Hurstwood] paused in an aimless, incoherent sort of way and looked through the windows of an imposing restaurant, before which blazed a fire sign, and through the large, plate windows of which could be seen the red and gold decorations, the palms, the white napery, and shining glassware, and, above all, the comfortable crowd […] "Eat," he mumbled. "That's right, eat. Nobody else wants any. (47.37-38)
Hey, remember that homeless guy who asked Hurstwood for some change way back in the beginning of the novel? Does Hurstwood's failure to help him out affect our impression of him in passages like this?