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Jenny Lott
Professor K. Mikos
LSP 111
19 November 2014
Gender Roles in Sister Carrie and The Jungle
Both Upton Sinclair and Theodore Dreiser portray the city of Chicago in their respective
novels, The Jungle and Sister Carrie. However, they each portray a vastly different aspect of the
city, and take very different approaches to do so. One major example is their approach to gender
roles. The roles of their female characters contrast greatly with each other. While Dreiser
subverts the known gender roles of the era, Sinclair is complacent in the social construct.
It took great pains for Theodore Dreiser to publish Sister Carrie due to questionable
morality (Green 41). The novel was forced to be scrubbed of much of its radical portrayal of
female sexuality before its publisher would consider printing, and even after massive editing, the
publisher hoped it would fail (Green 41). In spite of the disapproving society of the time,
Dreisers novel was a success. Carrie is immediately introduced as an unconventional heroine,
one who is dissatisfied with the societal norms expected of a young woman her age. Her
unorthodox methods for gaining a successful station make up the entirety of the novel.
When considering the time period where Sister Carrie takes place, it was only very
recently that women had begun to work for wages. While women played an important role in the
agricultural economy, they mainly played this role from inside their homes (Eby 3). However, as
the economy shifted, and factories became more prominent and a more central part of the
American workforce, women began to search for their work in these settings (Eby 3). Carrie
represents the modern woman of the time.

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When Carrie moves out of her sisters apartment to move in with Drouet, it is highly
symbolic of her desire to break away from convention. She rejects the life her sister represents-marrying, having children, living a domestic life--to live with a man she is not married to, which
was considerably scandalous in her time. This decision is only the beginning of Carries stray
from convention.
She stays with Drouet to fulfill her desire to gain material things. While the idea that
women are shallow and desire frivolous things such as clothing and jewelry is a common
stereotype that could be considered an example of Carries adherence to gender roles, her
methods of gaining these material goods are rather subversive. Traditionally, men are seen as the
manipulators of a relationship, preying on women and using coercive tactics to get what they
want, often pertaining to sexual desire. It is true that Drouet falls into this role in his relationship
with Carrie. One see this clearly when he expresses his triumph to himself, Oh, thought
Drouet, how delicious is my conquest (Dreiser 90). He preys on her and uses her lack of work
and money to lure her into accepting his supposed charity and companionship. However, Carrie
herself manipulates Drouet to get what she desires. She is aware of his attraction to her, and uses
it to gain status and promote her own vanity.
Carrie continues in her unconventional lifestyle when she develops feelings for George
Hurstwood, a married man, though she isnt initially aware of his married status. Still, the fact
that she is not only living with a man she is not married to but having an illicit affair with yet
another man is quite rebellious against late 19th-century standards and would have been highly
shocking for audiences of the time.
It is also important to note that, for most of its long history, theatre was considered
immoral by the majority of society. It was only very recently, the mid-to-late 19th century, that

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actors began to gain admiration and be considered members of high society as opposed to the
scorn and outcast status they had received in the past (19th Century American Theater 15).
Carrie enters the acting scene during this time and gains status through this. However, this was
still a relatively new concept, and therefore can also be seen as a rebellion against the social
norm. Carrie ultimately, through manipulation of the men she chooses to involve in her life,
becomes successful outside of the traditional gender roles of the time.
The Jungle, however, presents a very different take on gender roles.
For the most part, Upton Sinclair does not comment on the state of gender disparity in his
novel. The main character is Jurgis, a man, with a traditional family. His wife, Ona, stays at
home at Jurgiss insistence. A common theme throughout the novel is Jurgiss determination to
be the provider and caretaker of his family, as was expected of men, who were considered the
heads of their households.
While it can be argued that gender roles are subverted because they ultimately fail (Ona is
forced to find work, Jurgiss family completely falls apart), the failure doesnt stem from gender
roles themselves, but the capitalist exploitation that makes proper adherence to said roles
impossible. Sinclair seems to be arguing that traditional gender roles would be a part of a perfect,
socialist society.
Scott Derrick, in his dissertation What A Beating Feels Like: Authorship, Dissolution,
And Masculinity In Sinclair's The Jungle, points out that the book displays a sort of disgust for
the female body:
Eventually, The Jungle records not just a hatred of social injustice,
poverty, and suffering, but an aversion to the body and all of its fluids,
smells, and processes. Insofar as the novel reproduces the traditional

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equation between women and the body, this hatred is finally gynephobic.
Prior to childbirth, the frail yet desirable Ona barely has a corporeal
presence in the novel (Derrick 87).
He goes on to bring up a passage found in the original text that has since been edited out:
Cannot anyone in his right senses, Sinclairs narrator cries, see that such
troubles as Onas must continue to be the rule so long as women, whom God in
his infinite wisdom has condemned to be manufacturing machines, will insist
upon having children just as if they were ordinary human creatures? (Derrick 88)
This seems to suggest that women have been forced out of their natural roles as
childbearers by being forced to be laborers (Derrick 88).
Derrick also brings up Jurgiss disgust toward the feminine spectrum of emotions. Jurgis
finds Onas crying during her pregnancy revulsive: ...If he, Jurgis, had known what a woman
was like, he would have had his eyes torn out first (Sinclair 154). He also grows angry with Ona
when she is distraught over her rape: ...and then he sprang at her, seizing her by the shoulders
and shaking her, shouting into her ear: Stop it, I say! Stop it! (Sinclair 163). Jurgis even
wishes that she would die to avoid her shame (Sinclair 171).
Upton Sinclairs intent was, through use of realism, to change the way American society
viewed its working class. However, he seems, in his quest to promote socialism as a solution to
capitalist exploitation, to misunderstand what the causes and effects of gender roles were in his
society. As Derrick puts it, In general, then, The Jungle massively and misogynistically defends
against a feminine power that it creates itself.
Dreiser and Sinclair have vastly different approaches to the gender roles of their time.
Immediately, there is an obvious difference, as Dreisers protagonist is female, while Sinclairs is

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male. Dreisers men, throughout the course of the novel, grow increasingly inept and irrelevant
as the story progresses. His female protagonist, however, gains social acceptance, respect, and
high status. While Sinclairs male protagonist mainly serves to promote his socialist ideology, his
women serve to promote his male protagonist. Dreisers purpose seems to be to comment on and
subvert gender roles and the social hierarchies that come from them, while Sinclair glosses over
them despite ample opportunity to begin a discourse on the subject.

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