As Carrie's acting career flourished, she discovered that professional success gave her something no man had ever provided: a strong sense of her own worth that did not depend on anyone else's approval.
2Reading· 오늘의 본문
We · Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1924
Carrie arrived in Chicago with little more than a dream. The city's bright lights and grand department stores whispered promises of a better life, a life far from her simple beginnings. She felt a restless ambition stirring within her, a desire for the fine clothes, the admiration, the excitement that seemed to pulse through the streets. Yet, the city was a double-edged sword. Its temptations—the easy charm of men like Drouet, the glittering allure of the theater—offered a path, but one fraught with moral compromise. Her ambition, initially a vague longing for pretty things, began to harden into a specific drive. She wanted a place on that stage, not just for the applause, but for the independence it symbolized. The city had seduced her with its possibilities, and now her own hunger would push her to seize them.
B2 · 128 wordsavg 25.6 w/s
Theodore Dreiser’s *Sister Carrie* meticulously charts the transformation of its protagonist’s ambition under the corrosive and catalytic influence of the metropolis. Carrie’s initial desires are amorphous, shaped by the consumerist spectacle of Chicago—the dazzling shop windows and fashionable crowds that promise identity through acquisition. The city’s temptation is not merely material but existential; it offers a script for self-invention. Her relationships with Drouet and Hurstwood represent early, flawed attempts to secure this new identity through dependency. However, as she gravitates toward the theater, her ambition crystallizes. The stage becomes the literal and metaphorical space where she can author herself. Here, Dreiser suggests, ambition evolves from a passive yearning for urban offerings into an active, professional pursuit. The applause she earns is not just for a performance, but validation for a self-created persona, marking a pivotal shift from being a recipient of the city’s charms to becoming an agent of her own destiny within its ruthless economy. 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
flourished
번성하다, 융성하다
Carrie's acting career flourished on the New York stage, bringing her fame and fortune.
discovered
발견하다, 깨닫다
She discovered that true satisfaction came from her own achievements.
professional
직업적인, 전문적인
Her professional success on stage was entirely her own doing.
approval
승인, 인정
Her sense of worth did not depend on the approval of men like Hurstwood.
worth
가치
Success gave her a strong sense of her own worth as an individual.
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.