¶ … Financier written by Theodore Dreiser traces the personal and financial life of a fictional financier from the time of Andrew Jackson's administration through the aftermath of the "Great Fire" in Chicago in 1871. This essay identifies three problems in the public financing area that negatively impacted public interest and highlights the rules and organizations that have been created to reduce the probability of these three problems recurring. All three problems resulted from the city of Philadelphia's method used to raise funds. The system penalized small businessmen and benefited large merchants as well as banks and brokers. The people and organizations that knew the city politicians the best received the greatest income from the financing method. When it became necessary to change the funding method, the large merchants, bankers, and brokers attempted to generate even more income. The problems began prior to the Civil War and continued during and after the Civil War. When the city of Philadelphia had insufficient funds to pay its financial obligations, the city issued a type of financial commitment called a "warrant." The city treasurer decided when to pay off the debt generated by the issuance of the warrants. The city compensated small merchants by giving the merchants some of these warrants. These small merchants needed to cash to stay in business so they were forced to...
Large merchants had enough capital so they were not forced sell at a discount. The small merchants received only 90 cents for every dollar of warrants they had to sell. The bankers and brokers who bought the warrants from the small merchants continued to receive a fixed high rate of interest, six percent, and later redeemed each dollar of warrants for their full value. To make the problem worse, the city treasurer did not necessarily pay the required interest if funds were not available in the treasury. So the interest and principal payments were at risk in the short-term when the small merchants most needed the money.
Dreiser's "Second Choice" jolts Shirley out of her "lower-middle-class complacency by Arthur, a dashing, romantic newcomer who woos, wins, and leaves her. Love, Shirley suddenly finds, is excitement, defined by Arthur as freedom, movement, exploration," and a different way of being in the world (Harris 73). When Arthur leaves her, instead of using this reinvigorated sense of purpose to change her own life, her inability to win Arthur causes
characters in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. The writer of this paper provides an insight to the things leading to the eventual outcome of Carrie and Hurstwood. The writer uses examples from the book to underscore the paths each life takes and explain why they each end up the way they do. There was one source used to complete this paper. Many times fiction imitates real life with a hint of
Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser, and "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. Specifically, it will determine what each character's value system is by asking what things are most important to her and what things or values she spends most of the time seeking. Each of these characters has strong and determined values that guide them through their lives. These values are at the core of their being, and help the
Gender as Performance Theodore Dreiser's 1900 novel Sister Carrie is in style and tone in many ways radically different from Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, published just five years later. And yet there is in both works a similar core, what might be called a parallel moral, for both novels explore the ways in which gender is performative in the two societies that we learn about within the world of
Narrator In many ways, the literary movements and philosophies of determinism and individualism are opposites of one another. Determinism is one of the facets of Naturalism, and is based on the idea that things happen due to causes and effects largely out of the control of people and that choice is ultimately an illusion. Individualism, however, is widely based on the idea of free will and the fact that people can
Sister Carrie and a Modern Instance and discusses the characters geographic attempts to escape their problems. The writer compares and contrasts the stories and argues that social norms continue to follow the characters wherever they go. There were two sources used to complete this paper. Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie and William Dean Howells' A Modern Instance are classic examples of the way people try and change their personalities and their
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