Whether you believe in divine creation, evolution, or something in between, we can all agree that humans are driven by instinct and our own self-interest. Humans themselves are selfish creatures, taking whichever path will lead them to their desires regardless of the consequences it might have. In Theodore Drieser’s Sister Carrie, we see this idea embodied through the interaction of the characters throughout the plot. In Sister Carrie, Drieser uses the instinct humans have to move his characters and plot along. Through this use of instinct, we see naturalism at work. Drieser treats the characters, mainly Carrie, Hurstwood, and Drouet, as mice and puts them in a maze, Chicago, to see how they will react to their surroundings when presented with…show more content… Naturalism is characterized by people being forced in to situations by outside forces, mainly forces of nature. When Hurstwood is considering stealing the money, he is a bit drunk and is not completely competent of his actions (p. 236). He struggles between deciding whether to take the money or put it back. While making pondering his choices, the latch on the safe suddenly clicks shut and he is left with no choice but to take the money. The outside forces in this scenario are the alcohol in his body, that is impairing his judgement in the first place, and the latch that shut. This ties in with the theme of the novel because Hurstwood considers stealing in the first place for his own personal gain, nature just pushes him along. He struggles between whether or not he should steal the money because his wife had taken all of his property and when the safe locks itself nature makes his choice for him. Hurstwood considers stealing the money so he can run away with Carrie and possibly marry her. We can see that here his motives for stealing the money were entirely selfish and driven by his own desires without regard for
