In Sister Carrie, the city is the narrator. It is the main focus of the book and has a great impact on all those who are influenced by its greatness. For some it is a beacon of hope and a promised land of wealth and opportunity, while for others its walls close closer every day as they fight the battle of poverty and the effects of being lower-middle class. The city can make or break a person; it's really a matter of survival of the fittest. The city will reveal a tragic flaw in a person, or be the basis for extreme success. The city, with all its material prospects and consumer culture, is a combination of utopia and tragic disappointment, where the men who influence her turn Carrie into a rags-to-riches success. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Chicago, Carrie feels the weight of desire on her as she searches for a job. He doesn't want to blend in with the majority of people in the city, the simple and ordinary ones, but he wants to stand out. He envies the fine clothing and material goods that women of higher origins display and cannot adjust to being beneath them. This also applies when you are looking for a salary and have nothing. “To avoid a certain indefinable shame she felt at being caught spying for a position, she quickened her pace and assumed an air of indifference presumably common to those on an errand (17).” Working in the shoe factory she begins to become a product of her environment, truly discouraged and depressed by the women and senseless gossip that surrounds her. She finds the ordinary sweatshop life unbearable and knows that city life has some other purpose for her. Carrie sells herself for twenty dollars to Drouet, who sees it as an opportunity to improve her social status. Her desire for material pleasure surpasses her moral sense: "When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things: either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she quickly takes on the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse ". (1)." It is the city standard that sets this precedent, and Carrie, eager to find an identity through the cosmopolitan standard, is saved by men like Drouet and Hurstwood. She becomes a product of her environment by adapting the personality that Drouet desires for her and becomes a reflection of male desire. Carrie plays her roles convincingly even before entering stage life: from the beauty that men desire, to the woman who has no opinion other than that of material nature, to the lover and wife While she loses her individuality, these roles help her form independence, a key element that will prepare her to thrive in city life. She follows orders because she knows she will get money and material goods from it, which will make her stand out from the worldly as she blends in with the upper class, and that's where she'll find her place. Once Carrie gets a taste of the better life, she becomes immune to the life she left behind. A homeless man asks Drouet for a place to sleep. Drout "handed over a penny with a growing feeling of pity in his heart. Hurstwood scarcely noticed the incident. Carrie quickly forgot (135)." This is the point of no return, her innocence is gone, replaced by the wealth and fortune that the city possesses. "He realized... how much the city possessed --- wealth, fashion, comfort --- every ornament for women (22)..." For this he compromises his moral integrity, which is partly the city's fault because it keeps those who can afford it in a spell where morality matters but where.