Sea And Water Imagery English Literature Essay
Urban society imposes on the characters from Sister Carrie a force per unit area to which many of them succumb. The urban landscapes serve as puting for the narrative, characteristic of naturalism. In this scene, the characters are compared to elements of the sea, as they are undistinguished in the huge sea, merely like bantam “ wisps ” . This sea serves non merely as an image for crowds of people, but for forces stronger than adult male, in this instance capitalist economy. It is inevitable and all the lives of the characters turn around either the attainment of money or the calculated screening off of it. Feelingss and emotions bead in importance compared to the tide of uncontrolled capitalist economy and there is ever another chance in the sea of people. Carrie goes with the tide through several relationships, none long-lasting, each of them altering. As if contrary to her will, but if the sea image is seen as the “ tide of capitalist economy ” so it is clear that Carrie is merely following the pledge of stuff comfort and non love. Although the surface events of the fresh appear to parallel those of many a narrative of passion, love as it is plays no echt function in Carrie ‘s life. Sister Carrie depicts a complicated narrative about endurance and deficiency of experience “ giving up of one ‘s head to the powerful sea of capitalist forces and selfish desires ” . ( Smith, web )
As an illustration of naturalism, particular and considerable attending is given by Dreiser to sea and H2O imagination. Here, the sea base for the sea of people that gather together in urban countries, this is an tremendous topographic point where one can acquire lost or become drowned rather easy. The sea is shelter for many types of fish and few battle to reflect and non mix with those that are swept by the current. In the sea, nevertheless, there is simply the great attempt to remain drifting and non acquire lost.
When Carrie is swept to “ the sea of humanity in the metropolis ” ( Smith, 2010: web ) , she is lost and disserted. Even if she has optimistic ideas about her hereafter, she tends to compare herself with the other “ fish ” and realizes that what she has accumulated as experience at place does non use in the metropolis. Home in Wisconsin she was an single, but here she is one of the many that struggle in society. This idea is portrayed in a quotation mark, “ Work force and adult females hurried by in long, switching lines. She felt the flow of the tide of attempt and interest-felt her ain weakness without rather recognizing the wisp on the tide she was ” ( 18 ) . It is now that she realizes that she belongs to the sea and that she is bound to happen her topographic point in it. The rapid motion of people does non allow reason and exposure of feelings. It is place characterized by shallowness and Carrie shortly acknowledges her insignificance within it. ( Smith, 2010: web )
Carrie ‘s topographic point in the urban sea is bit by bit changed with the added capital. Drouet helps her separate from the remainder of the crowd and when meeting the misss from her former work topographic point “ Carrie felt as if some great tide had rolled between them ” ( 59 ) . Drouet ‘s entreaty proves overpowering and Carrie shortly outputs to his seduction. However Dreiser does non render Carrie ‘s seduction straight ; alternatively he suddenly shifts attending to Minnie, who is kiping at place dreaming of Carrie and herself in a series of crisis. In the dream the two adult females find themselves “ by unusual Waterss ” , standing on “ something that reached far out ” ( 61 ) Minnie ‘s dream paints the funny bend Carrie ‘s life had taken one time accepting Drouet ‘s offer. Eventhough ab initio she seemed swept by the sea she found her manner to the surface. This is merely the consequence of what Hurstwood noticed as being a strong point in Carrie: “ She possessed an unconditioned gustatory sensation for imitation and no little ability ” ( 112 ) . She possesses a unusual adaptability to the ways of the metropolis and sometimes she pretends to make so in order to suit the forms of the capitalist society. ( Smith, 2010: web )
Dreiser fills with dry item chapters 14-15 when depicting Carrie as insecure and afloat. In the presence of Drouet, who one time made her experience she had found a unagitated topographic point in a “ sea of problem ” , Carrie feels “ all at sea mentally ” ( 106 ) when discoursing Hurstwood. It is with farther dry turn, so, that Carrie is shown have oning a crewman chapeau when she meets her new lover in the park. The imagination of sea continues in the scene between Carrie and Hurstwood. Hurtwood wants to “ immerse in ” and expostulate with Carrie, but finds himself “ angling for words. ” For Carrie the “ floodgates ” are unfastened, and she finds herself “ still illogically floating and happening nil at which to catch ” , “ driftingaˆ¦on a borderless sea of guess. “ ( 114-115 ) Hurstwwood beats on against the current of Carrie ‘s indecisiveness. The imagination reveals Drouet ‘s purpose to demo the nature of adult male ‘s being in a universe of flux and resistless alteration. Man is dominated and controlled by the forces of nature. At those times when he most needs it, his ground wantonnesss him. ( Balling,1967: 50 )
Besides Carrie, Hurstwood besides acknowledges that the environment has shaped him excessively. Not long after he leaves his place town to get down “ downstream ” with Carrie we are given the writer ‘s sentiment sing his determination: “ Whatever a adult male like Hurstwood had been in Chicago, it is really apparent that he would be but an invisible bead in an ocean like New York. In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires were non legion ” ( 214 ) . “ The sea was already full of giants. A common fish must necessitate disappear from view-remain unobserved. In other words Hurstwood was nil. ” This comments foreshadow the full battle Hurstwood gives from the minute he leaves the known Waterss of Chicago.
Possibly the lone clip one manages to asseverate his individualism is when he attains capital and the ability to command the environment in which he lives. From the minute Carrie gets money she acknowledges that this is the lone manner she can last. Economic stableness is what she longs which brings with it societal security. “ In the position of a certain stratum of society, Carrie was comfortably established-in the eyes of a starveling, beaten by every air current and puffy sheet of rain she was safe in a Alcyone seaport ” ( 69 ) . Dreiser uses the sea imagination throughout the full narrative demoing Carrie ‘s lasting impetus. She eventually has left the unsteady seas with “ air current and puffy sheet [ s ] of rain ” reach the seashore and a “ halcyon seaport ” ( 69 ) stressing the fact that with suited agencies one can get the better of the sea. ( Smith, web )
Dreiser draws his imagination in the following chapters from barbarous nature. The vision of day of reckoning discoveries look in images of stormy conditions and “ darkening cumulonimbus ” pouring forth “ a rain of wrath. ” In the storm of his married woman ‘s barbarian green-eyed monster, Hurstwood is “ like a vas, powerful and unsafe, but turn overing and staggering without canvas. ” Similarly, in the onslaught of Drouet ‘s find about her and Hurstwood and her ain find about Hurswood ‘s matrimony, Carrie is shaken free from her forenoon of logic ” and becomes “ an anchorless, storm-beaten small trade which could make perfectly nil but impetus. ” Through such imagery Dreiser demonstrates his “ realistic ” doctrine, demoing his belief that adult male is simply an object battered about the dark forces of the natural existence. The ship, a conventional image of adult male ‘s impermanent but epic victory over nature is cast adrift and battered about mercilessly.A ( Balling, 1976: 52 )
A Dreiser opens chapter 29 “ the Solace of travel: The boats of the Sea ” with a treatment of travel. To the untravelled, new topographic points are intriguing. Travel “ consolations and delectations ” . New things and topographic points to see are so intriguing that they can non be neglected, and the head, which is a mere contemplation of centripetal feelings, succumbs to the inundation of objects. ” One forgets lovers, puts aside sorrow, and suspends impending jobs. Thus Carrie is fascinated by her entry into New York with its boats and main roads, and particularly the East River, “ the first mark of the great sea. ” ( Balling, 1963: 59 )
In Dreiser ‘s universe position such a drastic alteration in conditions is portion of the extraordinary flux of life. At one minute Carrie drifts along on stormy sea ; the following minute she finds herself on the crest of a moving ridge siting toward success. Looking over her shoulder, she sees Hurstwood stealing beneath the stormy surface.
In the urban landscape the sea of people seems endless. Some people are urgently seeking to remain afloat but others dare to trust for more and even dream of making the “ halcyon seaport ” -the promise of wealth and satisfaction. In Dreiser ‘s universe the paradigm “ endurance of the fittest ” is exemplifying for that specific trait that many “ fish ” deficiency: adaptability. This is what pushes Carrie to the pinnacle of success and what draws Hurstwood back into the deep Waterss of humanity.
The universe that Dreiser portrays is a ceaseless flux, a fluid, wide-open existence in xhich people are invariably lifting and falling – quality which he seeks to propose by the bunch of H2O images he employs in the novel, his infinite description of Carrie “ floating with the tide ” his summing up of Hurstwood in New York as “ an invisible bead in the ocean ” , and his assorted comparings of the metropolis to the sea. In such a universe the lone world is motion, the merely good is upward motion, the lone objects worth holding are those one can non afford. ( Lynn, 1991: 503 )
