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 stood in the wings, listening to the thunderous applause. It was for her. She had everything she once dreamed of: fame, a luxurious apartment, beautiful clothes. Yet, as the curtain fell, a strange emptiness settled in her chest. The dressing room was filled with flowers from admirers, but it felt terribly quiet. She looked at her reflection in the brightly lit mirror—the successful actress. But who was she behind the makeup and the role? The desire that had propelled her from Chicago to New York now felt like a bottomless pit. Each success only made her want more, leaving her wondering what, or who, she was truly applauding for.
B2 · 128 wordsavg 25.6 w/s
Theodore Dreiser, in "Sister Carrie," masterfully dissects the hollowness that can accompany material and professional triumph. Carrie Meeber's ascent to stardom on the New York stage fulfills her initial, burning desires, yet it simultaneously unveils a profound existential void. Her success, glittering and public, becomes a gilded cage. The applause she receives is for the persona she projects, not the woman she is, creating a dissonance between her external acclaim and internal identity. Dreiser suggests that desire, once satiated, merely mutates and expands, leading to an endless cycle of wanting. Carrie's story is not one of simple victory but a complex exploration of how achievement can isolate the individual, leaving them to question the very foundations of their happiness when it is built upon the fickle approval of an audience and the relentless pursuit of more. 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
As Carrie's acting career flourished, she became a star.
professional
직업적인, 전문적인
Her professional success on stage was undeniable.
provided
제공하다
Success gave her something no man had ever provided.
approval
승인, 인정
Her sense of worth did not depend on anyone else's approval.
worth
가치
She discovered a strong sense of her own worth.
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.