Hurstwood stole money from his employer and fled with Carrie to New York, sacrificing his respected position, his family, and his future for a woman who would eventually outgrow her need for him.
2Reading· 오늘의 본문
We · Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1924
Carrie arrived in Chicago with dreams shimmering in her eyes, a small-town girl seduced by the city's electric promise. The glittering shop windows, the rustle of fine silk, the confident stride of successful women—these were the whispers that fueled her ambition. She saw not just a city, but a stage. Her initial work in a shoe factory was a harsh lesson, a dull reality that clashed with her bright fantasies. Yet, the city's诱惑 was a constant hum beneath the grind. It wasn't merely about survival; it was about transformation. Carrie's desire was a quiet, growing force, pulling her toward a life of light and admiration, making her receptive to any opportunity that promised escape from the ordinary into the extraordinary.
B2 · 128 wordsavg 25.6 w/s
The city in *Sister Carrie* operates not merely as a setting but as an active, corrosive agent of desire, its allure fundamentally shaping Carrie's trajectory. Dreiser presents Chicago and later New York as landscapes of glittering surfaces and profound moral ambiguity, where ambition is both the necessary fuel for ascent and a potential poison. Carrie's longing, initially naive, is refined and intensified by her environment; the spectacle of material wealth and social status acts as a constant tutorial in discontent. Her ambition is thus a reactive force, a compound of innate yearning and the city's seductive pedagogy. She does not simply want things; she wants the identity and visibility they confer. This urban诱惑 systematically dismantles her provincial values, replacing them with an insatiable hunger for the next rung on the social ladder, making her a vessel for the city's own relentless, impersonal energy. What makes Sister Carrie endure as a work of literature is precisely this refusal to offer easy consolation — it demands that readers sit with the discomfort of a world that does not resolve neatly, and find their own position within it.
C1 · 170 wordsavg 34.0 w/s
3Vocabulary· 핵심 어휘 & 연습
abandoned
버리다, 포기하다
Hurstwood abandoned his comfortable life in Chicago, a decision he would later deeply regret.
fled
도망치다, 달아나다
They fled to New York under the cover of night, leaving their old identities behind.
sacrificing
희생하다
By sacrificing his integrity, he gained momentary freedom but lost his self-respect.
respected
존경받는
He lost his respected position as manager, a fall from grace that was both sudden and complete.
outgrow
~을 넘어서다, 자라서 ~이 필요 없게 되다
Carrie would eventually outgrow her dependence on Hurstwood, finding her own path to success.
Activity 1 · 빈칸 채우기5 questions
1. Every hour of D-503's life was carefully ____ by the Table of Hours.
2. The ____ of privacy did not exist in the One State.
3. Individual names were ____ and replaced with numbers.
4. The glass walls guaranteed there was no ____ for citizens.
5. The State was ____ declared to represent perfect happiness.