인간의 군집 본성과 도시 욕망—드라이저의『시스터 캐리』

Abstract

In Sister Carrie, Dreiser dramatizes the contrasting changes of urban desire respectively practised by Carrie Meeber and George Hustwood. Carrie's desire is continuously expended and intensified in the urban environments of Chicago and New York, while Hurstwood's desire gradually declines and finally fades away. The change of desire determines the rise and fall of the fates of the two characters in the urban society. This paper explores the process of limitless expansion and transformation of Carrie's urban desire on the assumption that it is an economic and social aspiration stimulated by the so-called “conspicuous consumption” and “pecuniary emulation” which characterize the consumer capitalist culture of the late 19th-century America. Dreiser asserts that man has come to secure existential dignity by pursuing his urban desire, that is, by constructing the city. In Sister Carrie, the fates of both Carrie and Hurstwood are formed by the dynamic interaction of the collective nature and urban desire of human beings, both of which are densely enacted in the city. Carrie's physical need grows and turns into psychological and social desire. By contrast, Hurstwood's social desire gradually diminishes and finally turns into physical need. Whether they satisfy their desire or not, both Carrie and Hurstwood remain mentally frustrated in the end. Dreiser suggests that an individual's urban desire in its nature does not conduce to his or her inner fulfillment. Hence the ultimate spiritual emptiness of Carrie at the end of the novel despite her material and social success. Ironically, the more satisfied she becomes in her execution of desire, the more confused she becomes about the meaning of life, because her urban desire permanently multiplies itself devoid of its ultimate moral ideal.