The industrial revolution makes many women go to work. They get economic independence and shake the position of men as breadwinners. The economic independence of women is a compensation on the loss of rights between women and men, it leads to the liberation of women

2. Literature Review 

     Sister Carrie was first issued by Doubleday, page&Co. Since 1900, it has been the focus of American critics and is studied widely by scholars from all over the world. In the early 1920s, many scholars researched it from the perspective of the relationship between literature and public morality.

     Many critics appreciate this novel like Sinclair Lewis thinks that it breaks vestiges of Puritan morality in America. Sherwood Anderson holds the view that the feet of Dreiser are making a path for us and they are tramping through the wildness making a path.文献综述

     Sister Carrie is controversial since it was published. Carrie is abused as a fallen woman by traditional critics and this novel is attacked strongly. Many critics condemn that he had eradicated distinctive human values and had made animal instincts the supreme fact in human life”.

     By the late 1960s, people researched the richness of the novel. From the 1980s to the 1990s, people took Dreiser’s life and work as a reflection of the beliefs and values of his time.

     The criticism of the novel is mainly pided into three parts. In the first half of the 20th century, it was about the novel’s historical background. From the 1960s to the 1970s, it was studied from the view of structuralism. From the 1980s till now, people hold the view that Carrie has the rebellious spirit.