Hurstwood's Dilemma:A Spatial Interpretation Of Sister Carrie

According to Henri Lefebvre,space is not just a container of containing things or people.Rather,it represents ideology and thus influences individuals in space by ideology.The fate of George Hurstwood,one of the major characters in Sister Carrie written by Theodore Dreiser,is reflected through the dynamic between subject and space.The background of the novel is set in the late nineteenth century.At that time,various kinds of commodities appear with rapid industrialization,and this evokes people's desire for pursuing materials.Materialism pervades in society,especially in urban space and domestic space.Hurstwood's dilemma cannot be separated from the influence of the ideology of materialism that thee two kinds of spaces represent.In Chicago,Hurstwood is influenced by this urban space where materialism dominates and thus suffers alienation.Hurstwood starts as a manager of a saloon,and he is very passionate about wealth while he is quite indifferent to others.He is a typical alienated person.In the urban space of New York,Hurstwood is in a state of helplessness.He leads decent life at the beginning because he still has some money.However,New York is an urban space where money determines individuals' fate.With the loss of money,he becomes helpless.He not only suffers marginalization in career development but also bursts into mental loss.In addition to alienation and helplessness in urban space,Hurstwood is homeless in spirit in domestic space.He suffers spiritual homelessness because domestic space is controlled by materialism.When he lives in the purchased house,family members are connected only by money.When he moves to rented flats for seeking emotional shelter only to find Carrie just regards him as the tool of satisfying her material desires.The thesis reveals the ideology of materialism that urban space and domestic space represent leads to Hurstwood's dilemma in his life.Hurstwood experiences helplessness,suffers spiritual homelessness and even gets into the dilemma of alienation in space.