Movement, Stasis, and the City: Rocking through Gendered Social Mobility in Sister Carrie Anonymous College

The concept of movement is historically synonymous with the cultural creation of the city. Urban space functions through constant motion in which city dwellers use convenient transportation as a means of passing through various areas in the urban environment. Additionally, movement in the city forms a unique social dynamic between those walking on city sidewalks or riding on communal transportation. While relationships in urban spaces are traditionally marked as distant and emotionally disconnected, the act of movement through a city builds a sense of continuity amongst city dwellers. A stagnant or immobilized city dweller then, exists on the conceptual periphery of the urban space, separated from the conventional modes of engaging with other city dwellers through transit-based movement.

In writer Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 naturalism-themed novel Sister Carrie, the contrast between movement and stasis is made abundantly clear. Dreiser positions his characters around their ability to navigate the harsh realities of the urban environment through movement. Carrie Meeber, the novel’s central protagonist shifts through various levels of mobility, rising within the social hierarchy as she learns to operate modes of transportation and...