FRACTURED IDEALS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF WOMANHOOD IN "SISTER CARRIE" AND "JENNIE GERHARDT"

This comparative study explores the depiction of womanhood in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, two landmark novels of American literary naturalism. Both works portray female protagonists navigating economic hardship, social expectation, and moral ambiguity in a rapidly modernizing society. Through the characters of Carrie Meeber and Jennie Gerhardt, Dreiser reveals the fragility of ideals such as love, virtue, and ambition when confronted by the forces of class disparity and gender oppression. While Carrie pursues material success and adapts to urban capitalism, Jennie embodies self-sacrifice and emotional dependency within a more traditional moral framework. By contrasting these two female journeys, the study highlights Dreiser’s evolving vision of womanhood—complex, conflicted, and deeply shaped by the deterministic pressures of their environments.