Abstract
This event is the crucial event of the book. Indeed, it's the first confrontation between two people from totally opposite social situations. Drouet is a prosper businessman while Carrie is going to Chicago to get a job in a company to fulfill her needs. If Carrie had not met Drouet here, her destiny would have been totally different. It makes Carrie entered in a world she should never have been able to go without Drouet's help. Carrie has the chance to be a pretty girl and their meeting is not without any relation to it. She could have rejected this totally stranger but she was appealed by what this man represented. Indeed Drouet was fancy, well educated, thoughtful and nice to her, and Carrie was probably flattered that such a man would be interested by her. This scene is the confrontation between two different worlds, and the key of Carrie's fate.
Carrie is unhappy in her life with her sister and husband. She is dreaming about bright, pleasure and luxury while the two others were pragmatic. She is confronted to the reality of the life for people of her conditions. Indeed, in this world, she is just one girl among the others who needs to work to survive. This is a shy, reserve and uncertain Carrie that is looking for work. She is at the beginning of her life and doesn't have any experience about searching a work. She realized that her expectations about the nature and the paid for the work would have to be revised downwards as her thoughts showed us «While the appearance of the shop and the announcement of the price paid per week operated very much as a blow to Carrie's fancy, the fact that work of any king was offered after so rude a round of experience was gratifying.»
She found a job at Adams Shoe Co and gave quite all of her income to pay her rent to her sister. Carrie here has to face the gap between her wish to shop and the money she has, that's why shopping with Drouet was so appealing for her. While she worked hours in so difficult conditions she couldn't afford any clothes. At the opposite, one hour of shopping with Drouet and he paid to her everything that she wanted. This facility attracted her and that's why she left her sister to follow Drouet.
