Abstract
Carrie is a paradoxical character. One the one hand she is the embodiment of naivety, innocence and ingenuity. But on the other side she is wiser and more cautious than any character of Sister Carrie book. All along the story we see her growing and winning in maturity as she faced events in her life. She learns how to adapt and adjust herself in every situation. She is influenced by the capitalist society. At the beginning and until the last pages of the book, we notice that she cares a lot about her image, about being well dressed and about rubbing shoulder with the great and the good. That's also why she wants to become an actress, to become famous and admired by others. For me Sister Carrie is also a manipulative character. She uses her physical beauty in order to manipulate men, Drouet and then Hurstwood. She only lives to be satisfied and she lets her old lover, Hurstwood dying, without providing any help to him. Her conception of the world starts to change when she met Ames, this young man who seems far aways from the individualist and material conceptions of the capitalist society of that time.
Because Carrie admires him, she started to be influenced by him, and she detached herself from her old conceptions and self centered opinions, and she realized the defects of the capitalist system. Indeed at the end of the book she says addressing her friend Lola : « «Oh Dear (...) That's all you think of. Aren't you sorry for the people who haven't anything tonight?» . She suddenly takes conscience that capitalism works at the cost of poor workers, but too late to save Hurstwood. By taking conscience that the world is unfair and material she gets out of the system. She suddenly becomes alone without any goals and projects. She is out of the «course of beauty» . And she knows that she can't be happy anymore facing those realities.
