Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie is another of the books that I read long ago in graduate school but wanted to return to.  It was in a 20th century American literature course where I first read a lot of realism and naturalism and started to gain a taste for authors I had never read before.  I have mentioned American Naturalism here many other times and I know that I have mentioned Dreiser at least once before.
This novel holds up with what I remember.  The story itself is simple enough but I was more interested in Dreiser's approach.  In other naturalistic novels, the author tends more to present narrative without a lot of exposition or commentary.  Stephen Crane wrote spare novels that demonstrate the restricted choices that characters have and the outcome of their paths.  In one sense, Crane's novel Maggie accomplishes most of what Sister Carrie does in a fraction of the pages.  One of the things that Dreiser does differently is inject his own philosophy move overtly into the text.  There are many points at which the narrator will offer opinions on such topics as happiness, productivity, labor shortages and unionization, and art.  Rather than simply using the narrative to showcase the deterministic inevitability of decline, Dreiser opts to also build his case on top of this.
One of the more striking examples of this takes place late in the novel.  Carrie has become a comedic success and is finally making money and gaining recognition for her acting.  Dreiser pulls back the veil on the superficiality of her fame through the character Ames, a young potential suitor.  While Carrie had been content in the comforts her new fortune allows, Ames challenges her to take on more serious roles.  He tells her that he sees something in her acting, that her facial expression is a "natural expression of [the world's] longing."  He continues, "The world is always struggling to express itself ... Most people are not capable of voicing their feelings.  They depend upon others.  That is what genius is for.  One man expresses their desires for them in music; another one in poetry; another one in a play." Ames sees artistic expression as a responsibility, he even calls it Carrie's burden.  Soon after this Ames disappears from the novel and Dreiser ends the novel with Carrie sitting on a rocking chair, dreaming of the happiness that she will never feel.
I like this notion of aesthetics, even if I cannot fully subscribe to it.  Essentially, what I take from this is that Ames (and possibly Dreiser, himself) sees art as methods of forging connections with the world.  The audience finds connection to the world and to their own emotions through the expressions of others.  If this is true, then it is a burden on the artist to vicariously emote for others.  I think that this is part of what art can do, but it also seems that Ames wants to romanticize the artist and the nature of genius.