Theodore Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" (1900) was controversial because it:

Question

Accepted Answer

Depicted a woman who prospers despite moral transgressions. The correct answer is that it depicted a woman who prospers despite moral transgressions. Carrie Meeber leaves small-town Wisconsin for Chicago, becomes the mistress of two men, and eventually achieves success as an actress without being punished for her moral failings. This violated the Victorian literary convention that immoral behavior must lead to downfall. The novel's publisher attempted to suppress it.

The novel does not contain explicit violence against children; its controversy centered on its sexual morality. Dreiser was influenced by social Darwinism and determinism but did not advocate communist revolution in this novel. The novel does not satirize any president; it focuses on the personal lives of ordinary people in urban America.

"Sister Carrie" is important for the CLEP exam as a landmark of American Naturalism. Students should understand its deterministic worldview (Carrie is driven by desire and circumstance rather than moral choice), its unflinching portrayal of urban consumer culture, and its significance in the history of literary censorship. Dreiser's later novel "An American Tragedy" (1925) extends similar themes.

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