Sister Carrie

Hurstwood meets Carrie and promises to marry her if she agrees to run away with him. He convinces her to meet him on Saturday. “If you will marry me then,” Carrie replies, “I’ll go” (142). After he departs, she decides she will be with her “handsome adorer,” and that they will go away and “be happy” (142).

Hurstwood’s wife is told by her doctor that he saw her husband driving about town with a young girl. She then hears about the lodge play and Carrie’s show-stopping performance. When she confronts Hurstwood with her accusation, Hurstwood denies everything. But when his wife threatens to hire a lawyer, he understands he is in trouble: “He cannot contest her, cannot demand proof, for there would be an abundance, and he could not attack” (150). He is helpless.

Carrie struggles with doubts over running off with Hurstwood. When Drouet returns, ready to confront her with questions about her involvement with Hurstwood, Carrie, “flushing scarlet to the roots of her hair” (153), denies they are anything but friends. Drouet stuns Carrie by revealing that Hurstwood is married.

Reeling, Carrie accepts Drouet’s offer to stay in her apartment for at least another month to sort out her predicament. Overwhelmed and in tears, Carrie still declines to admit anything to Drouet about her relationship with Hurstwood. Upset over her intransigence, Drouet erupts, angry over her deception, sad over the possibility of losing Carrie, and embarrassed over how she played him. He accuses Carrie of being an exploitative gold-digger. Carrie is surprised by the depth of his passion. “Too often,” she decides, “jealousy is the quality upon which love feeds” (159).

It becomes increasingly clear to Hurstwood that his wife poses a real threat. He finds out through a telegram sent to his office that his wife threatens to sic a detective on him and enlist a divorce lawyer. She demands he pay her the money set aside for the family’s vacation to Waukesha just to keep their marriage together. When in a subsequent telegram she threatens to tell his boss, undoubtedly costing him his job and reputation, Hurstwood sees he has no alternative but to cooperate. “What exactly did she know?” he asks himself. “Maybe she’d got hold of Carrie” (162). When he goes home, he finds all the locks changed.

With no place to stay, Hurstwood holes up in a seedy hotel, going to work each day like normal: “Every once and a while he would clench his fingers and tap his foot—signs of the stirring mental process he was undergoing” (163).

With no choice left, he wires his wife the money she asks for. Depressed and outplayed by his wife, Hurstwood realizes it has been days since he has seen Carrie. A few days later, he receives a letter requesting him to come to the offices of his wife’s divorce lawyers. Terrified, he does nothing until two days later he receives a second letter from the law firm threatening to file suit against him for divorce unless he comes to the office.

With Drouet now gone and his return uncertain, Carrie resolves to get a job. She tries several businesses but gets turned down. She considers pursuing acting but is told at numerous repertory theater companies that she lacks real stage experience and would do better in New York. When she gets a letter from Hurstwood pining for her, she responds with a letter that unequivocally tells him to leave her alone. She cannot forgive his deception over being married.

After a long day of job searching, she finds evidence in her flat that Drouet had been there and had left with most of his things. What she does not know is that he came back to work out their problems, but Carrie never showed up. He vows to return the next day.

Undeterred by Carrie’s letter, Hurstwood, hoping that Drouet might have left her, tries to visit Carrie but is rebuffed by the maid. At work, Hurstwood turns to alcohol to handle his depression. One night when he is closing up the bar, he notices the manager left the safe with the week’s take open. A bit drunk, Hurstwood cannot resist holding the bundles of cash, more than $10,000 dollars he guesses. He absently flips the money, his conscience goading him, “Did you ever have $10,000 in ready money?” (179). As he ponders the cash, he accidentally pushes the safe’s door shut.

Hurstwood decides it is a sign for him and Carrie to get free of his situation. He heads to the train station and purchases two tickets to Detroit, a stop on the way to Montreal and freedom. He tricks a half-awake Carrie into coming with him by telling her that Drouet has been rushed to the hospital. Carrie is confused when she gets into the cab and Hurstwood orders the driver to head to the depot.

Angry and confused, Carrie realizes that she has been tricked. Trying to placate her, Hurstwood dismisses his wife and family: “I’m done with all that” (187). He again promises he will marry Carrie once they get to New York before they head into Canada.

Mollified, Carrie agrees to go to Montreal with him but only on the condition they marry. “I wish,” she tells him, “that I was out of all this” (190). He assures her she will feel better once they get to Montreal.

In a Montreal hotel, Hurstwood tells Carrie, who still knows nothing of the theft, that he will arrange a quick wedding. In the hotel lobby, Hurstwood sees a man he suspects is a detective from Chicago. That night, the same man comes to their room. Desperate to avoid arrest, Hurstwood explains how the safe accidentally locked on him and promises to wire the money back to the restaurant. When the detective says he must check with Hurstwood’s boss about the deal, Hurstwood, fearing he might still be exposed as a thief, purchases a marriage license with Carrie using an assumed name, George Wheeler.

The company back in Chicago agrees not to prosecute Hurstwood if he returns the money, which he does—all but $1300. Feeling at last safe, Hurstwood takes Carrie that night to New York. Arriving the next day, Carrie is initially unimpressed with the city—there are too many office buildings and too few houses—but she is happy now to be Hurstwood’s wife.

Determined to set them up financially, Hurstwood buys part-ownership of a saloon near their apartment using most of the money he kept. He is certain he will recoup the money quickly and that Carrie will never know how desperate their situation has become.

Carrie, however, notices something amiss. Hurstwood is careful in his spending; they never go out, their meals are meager, and he wears the same suit of clothes every day: “Trouble gets in the air and contributes gloom, which speaks for itself” (205). Carrie sees that this penny-pincher is not the Hurstwood she knew back in Chicago with that “liberal and opulent” (205) swagger.