Carrie in Carousel--Spoiler Warning!!!!!!!!!

After Carrie gets dumped by Mr. Snow, what happens to her? Is there any other mention of her in the show?

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She doesn't get dumped by Mister Snow. They get married and have a gaggle of children, just like he wanted. And they turned out snobby and looked down on Julie's daughter (this all is revealed in the ballet portion). Her relationship is an example of emotional abuse of a passionless marriage, compared the the physical abuse endured by Julie.

Updated On: 9/5/06 at 08:18 PM

By emotional abuse -- I mean his methodical approach to marriage. Does "When The Children Are Asleep" really sound like a romantic proposal? Does "Geraniums In The Winder"?

eta: Perhaps abuse isn't the right word.

Updated On: 9/5/06 at 08:36 PM

I'm probably being influenced by what might have been a bizarre choice by my director when I did this show to try to emphasize that point. Because the show certainly needs to be a lot darker. I always thought of Jigger as the comic relief -- except for the whole being sorta responsible for Billy's death, thing.

But didn't they have a similar take in the most recent revival?

It could also be that I'm doing a poor job of explaining this. This was all several years ago, and I wasn't playing Mr. Snow, so my memory of the character discussions of him is a bit foggy. The director in question was one who, in my opinion, had a history of remaining pretty true to the material.

How it was done wasn't even something that would probably have been obvious to most in the audience. Carrie was played much in the same way that I had always seen her played, although Mr. Snow might have been sterner and less goofy than usual. It came down to a few choices to their brief moments around the ballet and how Carrie turned out, not so much of what happened in their courtship.

What it boiled down to was the raw, sexual heat that was at the core of the Julie/Billy relationship contrasted to the Enoch/Carrie one.

You guys certainly like to overanalyze.

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>You guys certainly like to overanalyze.<

Well, if there's a Golden Age musical more spiritual, more cosmic, and more downright strange than Carousel, I don't know what it is. Worthy of analysis, in my book.

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In real life, they had children. My BF's family were Snows. R&H based them on real people. I've never seen the show so I don't know all the details but my BF's grandmother(a snow) went to the premiere of the movie in NYC IIRC. The Snows are pretty popular in Maine. You can buy their chowder in every grocery store

wait...in the versions i've seen (and the movie too i think) i distinctly remember that carrie does not marry mr. snow- in the revival she does???

What the hell version have you seen in which the Snows do not marry?

Mr. Snow appears with his six children in the ballet. The oldest girl taunts Louise, while the oldest boy (Enoch Jr.) clearly has a crush on her. Then there's a whole scene in which Carrie (with her newborn seventh child in her arms) talks about the recent trip she and Enoch took to New York City. Later in the same scene, Enoch Junior asks Louise to marry him. When he admits he'd be "marrying beneath his station", Louise takes a swing at him and chases him off. In the final scene, Louise and Enoch Jr. are graduatijg high school, and the entire Snow family is there.

Just checked the script, and Carrie's in Act Two, Scene Five, talking about the trip to NY with Enoch and the *nine* kids.

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Updated On: 9/8/06 at 01:47 AM

I don't remember the number in ours. I just remember that I hated them all.

Carrie and Mr. Snow have a "conventional" marriage, comfy, secure, and if it hints at something less-than-romantic, that's fine too. But it isn't "loveless" or "cold." It just "average" and "ordinary" in the world of conventional marriages.

Julie and Billy's marriage is full of passion, drama, instability, heated emotions, and plenty of "excitement," and look where it got them.

Food for thought for "romantics" in any era, and YES, this piece deserves to be over-analyzed and over-discussed. It's one of the best ever written for musical theatre, and it's full of "grey areas," not neat and tidy "black and white" truths or characters.

You'd be hard to top it today, or any day for that matter.

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