How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. (1.3)
Ah, well, at least we find out early that our narrator views women as such passive beings and in such majorly black-and-white terms. This narrator is going to have plenty of opinions about women, and such a provocative statement as this gives us a taste of them right from the get go. Brace yourselves, feminists.
Quote #2
A woman should some day write the complete philosophy of clothes. No matter how young, it is one of the things she wholly comprehends. (1.17)
"No matter how young"? Really? This quote implies that baby girls come straight from the womb equipped with knowledge about how to spot a fake Prada purse. Any problem with that line of thinking?
Quote #3
In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found time to study the flat. She had some slight gift of observation and that sense, so rich in every woman—intuition. (2.5)
This kind of sounds like a compliment at first, right? Carrie, like "every woman," is blessed with observation and intuition. Of course, it's dangerous to generalize about any group of people, even when attributing positive qualities to them. This is especially true in the late nineteenth century, when associating women with emotional aspects of life like intuition could be a way of implicitly saying they lacked rationality and therefore weren't fit for participating in political life.
Quote #4
It must not be thought that any one could have mistaken [Carrie] for a nervous, sensitive, high-strung nature, cast unduly upon a cold, calculating, and unpoetic world. Such certainly she was not. But women are peculiarly sensitive to their adornment. (3.43)
Are there female characters in the novel who contradict the notion that "women are peculiarly sensitive to their adornment"? And are the women in this novel really all that more into adornment than some of the fashion-obsessed men?
Quote #5
Now [Carrie] paused at each individual bit of finery, where before she had hurried on. Her woman's heart was warm with desire for them. (7.29)
Why is the word "woman" thrown in here at all (we know by this point in the novel that Carrie is a woman, after all)?
Quote #6
[Hurstwood] watched [Mrs. Hurstwood] with considerable curiosity at times, for she was still attractive in a way and men looked at her. She was affable, vain, subject to flattery, and this combination, he knew quite well, might produce a tragedy in a woman of her home position. Owing to his order of mind, his confidence in the sex was not great. (9.49)
How does Hurstwood's lack of "confidence in the sex" play out in his relationship with Carrie?
Quote #7
Drouet had a habit, characteristic of his kind, of looking after stylishly dressed or pretty women on the street and remarking upon them. He had just enough of the feminine love of dress to be a good judge—not of intellect, but of clothes. He saw how they set their little feet, how they carried their chins, with what grace and sinuosity they swung their bodies. A dainty, self-conscious swaying of the hips by a woman was to him as alluring as the glint of rare wine to a toper. (11.5)
It's interesting that what really catches Drouet's attention is a kind of exaggerated femininity that's emphasized by clothes and by actions like carrying, swinging, and swaying. This suggests that for a woman to be attention-worthy for men of Drouet's "kind" it's not enough to simply be a woman; one needs to act like a woman through dress and exaggerated movements.
Some feminists (like Judith Butler) might say that these socially-sanctioned acts of femininity are exactly what create the illusion that men and women are so very different from one another (rather than being innately different).
Quote #8
She looked in the mirror and pursed up her lips, accompanying it with a little toss of the head, as she had seen the railroad treasurer's daughter do. She caught up her skirts with an easy swing, for had not Drouet remarked that in her and several other, and Carrie was naturally imitative. She began to get the hang of those little things which the pretty woman who has vanity invariably adopts. In short, her knowledge of grace doubled, and with it her appearance changed. She became a girl of considerable taste. (11.27)
"One is not born, but rather, becomes a woman," declared twentieth-century feminist Simone de Beauvoir. How does Carrie illustrate this idea here?
Quote #9
[Carrie] might have been said to be imagining herself in love, when she was not. Women frequently do this. It flows from the fact that in each exists a bias toward affection, a craving for the pleasure of being loved. The longing to be shielded, bettered, sympathized with, is one of the attributes of the sex. This, coupled with sentiment, and a natural tendency to emotion, often makes refusing difficult. It persuades them that they are in love. (23.3)
Wow, the narrator sure claims to know a lot about lovesick women. What do you think of this theory?
Quote #10
[Carrie] noticed suddenly that Mrs. Vance's manner had rather stiffened under the gaze of handsome men and elegantly dressed ladies, whose glances were not modified by any rules of propriety. To stare seemed the proper and natural thing. Carrie found herself stared at and ogled. Men in flawless top-coats, high hats, and silver-headed walking sticks elbowed near and looked too often into conscious eyes. (31.56)
Tsk, tsk. It's not polite to stare… except in this case when men staring at women (and women staring at women) is "the proper and natural thing." We might even say that the women themselves (in this fashion parade scene) invite their own objectification.