Andrew Delbanco notes in his introduction to the 1999 Modern Library's Edition of Sister Carrie that "Carrie's fate ... has been set in motion ... by her failure to understand ... that a woman does not look a strange man steadily in the eye without signaling to him that she is ready to be included in the system of exchange." Psychologists today would call Carrie's eye contact a form of nonverbal communication. Research the forms of nonverbal communication psychologists have identified. Give examples of the types of messages psychologists believe people are sending when they use different nonverbal clues. What kind of nonverbal clue could Carrie have sent if she did not want to interact with Drouet?

Today, critics credit Dreiser with paving the way for writers who came after him to write realistically about life in America. Research late nineteenth-century life in America. Make at...