The Female Experience of the American Dream in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900)

The aim of the present article is to study American woman’s experience of the American Dream in the turn of the twentieth century (the period known as the Progressive Era), through the analysis of the dreams of the main female character Carrie Meeber in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900). Dreiser, known as the author of woman, explores in this novel the issue of woman within the urban environment, by presenting her as being modern, with materialistic dreams, which determined her faith and actions, and detached her from her morals and traditions in favor of money and fame.Keywords: Woman, the U.S.A., Progressive Era, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, Materialism, Modernity, American Dream