She felt the worn state of her shoes.” In this first encounter, Carrie distinguishes only between rich and poor: Drouet is rich while she is poor. Carrie immediately noticed Drouet’s rich dress: “His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at the time He was attractive, and whatever he had to recommend him, you may be sure was not lost upon Carrie.” As a result, Carrie also becomes “conscious of an inequality” between the way she and Drouet dress: “Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton trimmings, now seemed to her shabby. The first relatively wealthy person Carrie meets is Drouet, on the train to the city. However, she only perceives an oversimplified binary: rich and poor. At the same time, Ames shows Carrie that contrary to what she had thought, wealth does not necessarily define one’s class-displays of wealth can, ironically, create the perception that one is of a lower class.Ĭarrie becomes aware of wealth and class as soon as she boards the train to Chicago. Vance-Carrie learns that the spectrum of wealth is exceedingly wide. After meeting an assortment of characters from different social backgrounds-including Hurstwood, Mrs. Towards the beginning of the novel, Carrie only perceives that she, a jobless young woman, is poor, while Drouet, a businessman, is rich. Over the course of Sister Carrie, Carrie comes to learn the complexities of wealth and class.

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