An American Tragedy 

A Novel by Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) 

A Study Guide

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Settings Characters Type of Work Naturalism
Source: Real-Life Case Theme Point of View Structure
Style Climax and Denouement Dreiser's "Stage Directions" Foreshadowing
Study Questions Essay Topics Biography of Dreiser Complete Text
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Plot Summary 
By Michael J. Cummings...© 2006 
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.......Growing up poor in the early 20th Century, 12-year-old Clyde Griffiths hopes someday to break free of his family and climb
into the upper circles of American society. He wants to be somebody. 
.......Clyde is one of four children of Asa and Elvira Griffiths, who preach and sing the Gospel on the streets of Kansas City,
Missouri, receiving donations along the way. The other children are Julia and Frank, both younger than Clyde, and Hester
(nicknamed Esta), a few years older. The Griffiths family had previously fished for souls in Grand Rapids, Detroit, Milwaukee,
and Chicago. 
.......In Kansas City, they live on one floor in a run-down building on Bickel Street. Their home doubles as the Bethel Independent
Mission, where they hold church meetings Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Whenever Clyde’s parents go out on the
streets to do God’s work, he and his three siblings must accompany them and take part. But Clyde is a reluctant participant.
What boy wants to wear shabby clothes while singing hymns on a street corner? 
.......He takes odd jobs now and then, but what he really wants is a steady job that will put nice clothes on his back and give him
pocket change. After he turns 16, Clyde makes his move, taking a job as assistant to a soda-water clerk at Klinkle’s Drugstore at
7th and Brooklyn. He makes $12 a week. 
.......Meanwhile, his sister Esta runs away with an actor, and his parents begin talking of moving again,
this time to Denver. These developments cause Clyde to look inside himself and establish goals. He
decides that he will not be going to Denver. He also decides that he wants a more prestigious, higher-
paying job. Eventually, he finds work as a bellhop at the Green-Davidson Hotel, one of Kansas City’s
finest. The position is a major step forward for him. For one thing, he is told, he will average $4 to $6 a
day in tips—or up to $42 a week. In addition, he will receive free room and board and an additional $15
a month in regular pay. Finally, he will get to wear a snappy uniform. He could not have asked for
more. 
.......Clyde makes several friends on the job, and they show him what they think real living is all about—fine food, wine and
whiskey, women. He even visits a brothel. Eventually, Clyde meets a pretty working-glass girl named Hortense Briggs, who
works in a Kansas City store. When he asks her out, she pretends to have dates with other fellows. Nevertheless, she agrees to
see him on occasion, accepting little gifts from him even though she does not care about him. 
.......During this time, Esta returns to Kansas City—pregnant but unmarried—after her boyfriend deserts her in Pittsburgh. She
lives in a furnished room, apart from the family, and Mrs. Griffiths gives her money and food. Although Clyde reviles the man for
his sister’s predicament, he believes his sister shares in the blame. After all, he thinks, she should have taken the time to find
out what kind of person he was before running off with him. 
.......As for Hortense, she doesn’t really care about Clyde. However, she tolerates him for the gifts he gives her and the
compliments he bestows on her. 
.......One afternoon late in January, Clyde and three of his bellhop friends—Oscar Hegglund, Davis Higby, and Thomas Ratterer—
take their girlfriends to a country inn at Excelsior Springs in a Packard limousine driven by Hegglund’s friend Willard Sparser, the
son of an employee of a wealthy citizen, Mr. Kimbark, who is on a trip in Asia. When Kimbark is not around, Sparser sometimes
takes the limousine, without permission, on joyrides. Sparser also brings along a girlfriend. 
.......At the inn, called the Wigwam, the couples drink and dance—Hortense with Sparser, to Clyde’s dismay. Her behavior leads
him to believe she is just a flirt who cares little for him. However, noticing later that he is upset, she tells him she was just having
a little fun. When she promises to kiss him “when the others aren’t looking," Clyde accepts her explanation. In truth, Hortense
cares not for Clyde but for the gifts he buys her. 
.......When they return to Kansas City late in the afternoon, Sparser swings the limousine close to the curb to make a turn. A little
girl of about nine is crossing the street. There is no time for Sparser to swerve to avoid her, and the car strikes and drags her
along the street before Sparser can stop the car. People on the sidewalk rush to the scene. Inside the car, everyone is appalled,
exclaiming, “Oh, God!  He hit a little girl; "Oh, gee, he's killed a kid!" "Oh, mercy!" "Oh, Lord!" "Oh, heavens, what'll we do
now?" 
.......Panicking, Sparser speeds away while people at the accident scene shout, “Stop that car!"  A policeman near the scene
commandeers a passing car and, jumping on the running board, gives chase. Sparser, however, outruns his pursuer and
eventually reaches an outlying district where there are few houses and the streets are all but empty. However, at a construction
site, he caroms off a pile of paving stones and crashes into a pile of lumber set aside for building a house. Sparser and his
girlfriend, Laura Sipe, are knocked unconscious. The others, reeling from bruises and cuts, struggle to free themselves. While
several of them try to help Sparser and Sipe, Hortense runs off toward the city, thinking only of herself.  Then one of the other
girls says, “Oh, dear, we ought all of us to get away from here. Oh, it's all so terrible." 
.......A resident of the district, attracted to the scene, comes across a field and informs everyone that his wife has called an
ambulance. Realizing that police would be coming, too, they all run off, leaving Sparser and Sipe in the car. 
.......The setting shifts to the home of Samuel Griffiths in Lycurgus, N.Y. Samuel, who has just returned from a trip to Chicago, is
the older brother of Clyde’s father, Asa, whom Samuel has not seen in 30 years. Samuel is wealthy, having made a fortune
developing the Griffiths Collar and Shirt Company. At the dinner table, he tells his wife, Elizabeth, and three children—Gilbert,
Bella, and Myra—that he ran into his nephew (Clyde) at Chicago’s Union League Hotel. 
......."He's quite good-looking," Samuel says,"and well-mannered, too—about your own age, I should say, Gil, and looks a lot like
you—very much so—same eyes and mouth and chin." 
.......How did Clyde wind up at that hotel? The narrator explains, as follows: 
.......After the car crash in Kansas City, he left town. In St. Louis, he read a newspaper account about the death of the little girl
and the arrest of Sparser and Sipe, who were hospitalized and placed under police guard. When police questioned Sparser, he
revealed the names and addresses of all his passengers. Consequently, for the next three years, Clyde became something of a
fugitive, living for a while in St. Louis, Peoria, and Milwaukee. He supported himself by taking menial jobs—one in a restaurant,
another in a shoe store, another in a grocery, and so on—and calling himself  “Harry Tenet."  Eventually, he ended up on
Chicago. 
.......There, he drove a delivery wagon and took a room on the West Side. After writing to his mother, she wrote back, saying the
family was in Denver. While making a delivery to the Union League Hotel, he ran into Ratterer, who was employed there.
Ratterer said his sister had informed him that Sparser did a year in prison but that no one knew what happened to Higby and
Hegglund. Hortense Briggs went to New York with a man who worked in a cigar store. 
.......Clyde eventually got a job at Chicago’s Great Northern Hotel. Three months later, he accepted a position at the Union
League, a superior hotel, after Ratterer spoke up for him. It was at the Union League that Clyde encountered his uncle, Samuel
Griffiths, who offered him a job back in Lycurgus at the Griffiths Collar and Shirt Company, Inc., after noticing that Clyde seemed
to have a pleasant demeanor and that he resembled his son, Gilbert, a company executive. 
.......The narrator then returns to the present.
.......Clyde accepts his uncle's offer, moves east, and goes to work in the six-story factory while living in a boardinghouse. Gilbert
assigns him to a job in the “shrinking room." 
.......Clyde soon discovers that his new job is no automatic entree into the world of the upper crust. Although Samuel Griffiths
generally treats him fairly, Gilbert and other family members regard him as a social inferior and are not inclined to welcome him
to their circle. The common folk of Lycurgus treat Clyde cordially, but they do not invite him to their affairs. He is, after all, a
Griffiths, and probably has many opportunities to socialize. Or so they think. Ironically, when an acquaintance of his at the
boardinghouse befriends him, Griffiths thinks the fellow beneath him and generally ignores him. Consequently, through his own
doing and that of his relatives, Clyde feels isolated, lonely. 
.......Then events take a turn for the better. First, Samuel Griffiths invites him to his sumptuous home for dinner with his family
and guests, including a young woman named Sondra Finchley. She is everything Clyde ever dreamed of in a woman: “as smart
and vain and sweet a girl as Clyde had ever laid his eyes upon," the narrator says."To Clyde's eyes she was the most adorable
feminine thing he had seen in all his days."  Sondra notices that Clyde resembles Gilbert closely but is more handsome. 
.......In the days following dinner, Clyde yearns to become part of the world of the Griffiths. Meanwhile, Samuel Griffiths
promotes Clyde over the objections of Gilbert and raises his salary from $15 to $25 a week. (The elder Griffiths thinks it would
be bad for business—and his public image—if a Griffiths continues to perform menial labor.) Clyde is to take charge of the
“stamping department" on the fifth floor, where about 25 young women prepare directions for how collars are to be finished.
Clyde is ecstatic. He has his own desk and wears a suit, and managers of other departments begin to pay attention to him.
Believing he cannot continue to live in a mere boardinghouse, he gets better accommodations in a nicer section of town.
However, his relatives begin to ignore him again. Nevertheless, he continues to covet what they have and the way they live and
attempts to educate himself on the finer points of their lifestyle. 
.......With Miss Finchley out of reach—at least temporarily—he begins seeing another attractive woman, Roberta Alden, a
farmer's daughter who works in his department at the factory. Gilbert Griffiths had forbidden Clyde to mingle socially with any
of the factory girls, but Clyde and Roberta meet secretly and eventually become intimate. All goes well, and Clyde—in answer to
her prodding—vows never to leave her. 
.......Then he encounters Sondra Finchley again. It is evening, and he is out walking when a limousine pulls up with her in the
back seat. She has mistaken Clyde for Gilbert and offers him a ride. After realizing her mistake, she does not mind at all, for she
finds Clyde more likable than Gilbert. After inviting him to various social events, she is quite taken with him and falls in love with
him—and he with her and her social status. 
.......Clyde, of course, forgets all about Roberta—almost. Rather than breaking off with her all at once, he goes out with her
occasionally in order to cut his ties with her gradually. But a twist of fate takes him by surprise: She is pregnant. The news
devastates Clyde, for he and Sondra had become very close. She has allowed him to kiss her, and she has bought him gifts:
neckties, a gold pencil, a box of handkerchiefs. "His future in connection with her," the narrator says, "was of greater and
greater promise . . . . "[E]ven marriage, assuming that her family might not prove too inimical and that her infatuation and
diplomacy endured, might not be beyond the bounds of possibility." 
.......After persuading Roberta to abort the child, Clyde travels to Schenectady, N.Y., where know no one knows him, and buys a
box of pills from an unscrupulous clerk. Somewhat relieved, he returns and gives them to Roberta. Meanwhile, he carries on his
relationship with Sondra. However, when he meets her at a social event, he remains preoccupied with Roberta "in spite of
Sondra at the piano throwing him a welcoming smile over her shoulder as he entered. . . . ." 
.......When he checks on Roberta in the following days, she tells him the pills are not working even though she has taken
excessive dosages of them, which make her sick and pale. Clyde returns to Schenectady, and the dealer who sold him the pills
tells him it takes time for the pills to work. He gives Clyde a second prescription of the same pills. After they fail to work, he
takes Roberta to Gloversville, where a certain physician is said to administer abortions. However, despite Roberta's pleadings,
he refuses to abort the child. Roberta is now set on having the baby and makes Clyde promise to marry her. It appears he has no
way out—until he sees a newspaper headline: 
ACCIDENTAL DOUBLE TRAGEDY AT PASS LAKE—UPTURNED CANOE AND FLOATING HATS REVEAL PROBABLE LOSS OF
TWO LIVES AT RESORT NEAR PITTSFIELD—UNIDENTIFIED BODY OF GIRL RECOVERED—THAT OF COMPANION STILL
MISSING 
 
.......The thought of committing murder horrifies him at first. But the more he thinks about killing Roberta, the more he
convinces himself that he has no alternative. If she has the baby, he would be disgraced, ruined. Marrying Sondra would be out
of the question. One day, July 8, he goes off with her to a resort area in upper New York State. Roberta thinks they are eloping.
After they arrive, he takes her out in a boat, on Lake Bittern, to do the deed. It won't be difficult, for Roberta cannot swim. 
.......When they set off from shore, he takes along his camera under the pretense that he plans to snap pictures of her. About
500 feet from the shore, however, he experiences "a sudden palsy of the will—of courage—of hate or rage sufficient," the
narrator says. He is unable to act, unable to go through with his plan. As he sits there, it is if he is in a trance. Concerned,
Roberta asks why he looks so strange, then leans over to him to take his hand. Angry with himself for his failure to proceed,
angry with Roberta for her power over him, he reacts to her movement toward him, "flinging out at her" with the camera in his
hand. He does not mean to harm her; he wants only to prevent her from holding his hand. But the camera strikes her in the
face, throwing her back. The boat rocks and she falls in. Clyde lets her drown. 
.......There is a coroner's inquest, as well as an autopsy and, of course, a police investigation. Eventually, evidence indicates that
Roberta's death was no accident, and police charge Clyde with first-degree murder. Because the suspect in the case is a
Griffiths, a scandal follows and newspapers around the country publish stories about the case. In Denver, Esta, now married and
living apart from her family, reads an account of Clyde's indictment in the Rocky Mountain News. Following is a paragraph from
that account:
Young Griffiths, who is only twenty-two years of age, and up to the day of his arrest a respected member of Lycurgus
smart society, is alleged to have stunned and then drowned his working-girl sweetheart, whom he had wronged and
then planned to desert in favor of a richer girl. The lawyers in this case have been retained by his wealthy uncle of
Lycurgus, who has hitherto remained aloof. But apart from this, it is locally asserted, no relative has come forward to
aid in his defense.
Esta immediately goes to her parents' residence, the Star of Hope mission on Bildwell Street, and shows the article to her
mother. Julia and Frank, the youngest children in the Asa Griffiths family, are not at home. Julia, now 19, and Frank, 17, both
have jobs that they hope will one day enable them to escape "the drab world in which they found themselves," the narrator
says. However, another Griffiths child is at home—Russell, Esta's illegitimate son, not yet four years old. Asa and Elvira Griffiths,
pretending that he was an orphan, had adopted him in Kansas City after Esta returned from Pittsburgh, pregnant and
abandoned. 
.......Meanwhile, back in New York State, lawyers and government officials involved in the murder case become embroiled in
rivalries and machinations. After all, such a case could make or break reputations. Sondra Finchley's reputation, however is
protected: During all the proceedings, including the trial, she is referred to as "Miss X." 
.......In the trial, a jury finds Clyde guilty after a holdout juror, Samuel Upham, votes to convict Clyde when other jurors threaten
him. Newspapers throughout the country report the verdict. Judge Frederick Oberwaltzer then sentences Clyde to death in the
electric chair at a prison in Auburn, N.Y., where he is placed in solitary confinement until the day of execution. Mrs. Elvira
Griffiths, who has come to her son's aid even though her husband is ill, attempts to persuade the governor to commute the
sentence to life in prison, telling him that her son has made peace with God through a minister. Her voice breaks as she pleas he
case. Then she cries. The governor is touched, but he refuses to grant her request. Consequently, Clyde goes to the electric
chair, saying, "Good-by, all" to everyone witnessing his death. 
.......Meanwhile, the members of the Lycurgus Griffiths family have moved to another town to escape the scandal of it all. The
other Griffiths family—the roving evangelists—are on the streets of San Francisco, doing what they were doing when Clyde was
a little boy. The only difference is that Clyde has been replaced by Esta's son Russell. 
.......What will happen to him? Will he become another Clyde? 

Settings

The time is the first quarter of the 20th Century. The action takes place in Kansas City, Mo.; Excelsior Springs, Mo.; Chicago, Ill.;
the fictional town of Lycurgus, N.Y.; San Francisco, Calif., and various other locales in New York State, including Schenectady,
Utica, Albany, Gloversville, Auburn, N.Y. (site of prison where Clyde goes to the electric chair), and the resort regions in the
countryside. The novel also mentions locales which the characters have lived in, passed through, or received communication
from, including Grand Rapids, Mich.; St. Louis, Mo.; Peoria, Ill.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Detroit, Mich.; Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pa.;
Bedford, Pa.; Denver, Col.; Jersey City, N.J.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Tonowanda, N.Y.; and New Orleans, La. 

Main Characters

Protagonist: Clyde Griffiths  

Antagonist: Environmental, Sociological, Psychological, and Economic Forces Working Against Clyde 

Clyde Griffiths: Son of poor Protestant evangelists who move from city to city to preach the Gospel. Clyde grows up despising
his lot in life and desiring money, fashionable clothes, pretty women, recognition, and admission to the social circles of the high
and mighty. The novel traces his movements as he seeks his dreams—and ends up in a nightmare. Dreiser describes him as
having "a well-cut nose, high white forehead, wavy, glossy, black hair, eyes that were black and rather melancholy at times."  
Asa Griffiths: Clyde's father. In the Bible, Asa was a king of Judah who condemned idolatry.  
Elvira Griffiths: Clyde's mother, the daughter of a farmer.  
Hester (Esta) Griffiths: Clyde's older sister. She runs off with an actor and becomes pregnant, then returns to the family.  
Julia, Frank  Griffiths: Clyde's younger siblings.  
Samuel Griffiths: Clyde's wealthy uncle. After running into Clyde in Chicago, he takes a liking to him and gives Clyde a job in his
factory in eastern New York.  
Elizabeth Griffiths: Wife of Samuel Griffiths.  
Gilbert Griffiths: Son of Samuel Griffiths and cousin of Clyde. He despises Clyde and attempts to turn his father, Samuel, against
Clyde. Hortense Briggs: Self-centered girlfriend of Clyde in Kansas City. She goes out with him because he buys her gifts and
gives her attention.  
Roberta Alden: Daughter of a farmer in Blitz, N.Y., and worker in the factory of Samuel Griffiths. Clyde dates and impregnates
her even though he does not love her.  
Bella, Myra Griffiths: Daughters of Samuel Griffiths.  
Sondra Finchley: Beautiful, upper-class young woman who is a friend of the Samuel Griffiths family. She becomes involved with
Clyde.  
Thomas Ratterer, Oscar Hegglund, Davis Higby, Paul Shiel: Bellhops, friends of Clyde.  
Willard Sparser: Friend of Hegglund. Sparser drives a limousine that kills a little girl while Clyde and other bellhops, as well as
their girlfriends are in the car.  
Justice Oberwaltzer: Judge presiding at the murder trial. 
Samuel Upham: Juror who has doubts about Clyde's guilt but votes to convict him after other jurors threaten him. 
Judge, Attorneys, Coroner, and Others in the Criminal-Justice System 
Various Businessmen and Clerks of  Hotels, Drugstores, Shops, and Department Stores 
  
Type of Work and Year of Publication

An American Tragedy is a novel of naturalism presenting the story of a man struggling against social, economic, and
environmental forces—as well as forces within himself—that slowly drown him in a tide of misfortune. It was published in 1925
and became Dreiser’s most successful novel. 

Naturalism

Naturalism, an extreme form of realism, developed in France in the 19th Century. It was inspired in part by the scientific
determinism of Charles Darwin, an Englishman, and the economic determinism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both
Germans. Four Frenchmen—Hippolyte Taine, Edmond and Jules Goncourt, and Emile Zola—applied the principles of scientific
and economic determinism to literature to create literary naturalism. According to its followers, literary naturalism has the
following basic tenets: 

(1) Heredity and environment are the major forces that shape human beings. In other words, like lower animals,
humans respond mainly to inborn instincts and environmental influences that determine their behavior. In the
following passage from Book One, Chapter 1, of An American Tragedy, Dreiser says Asa Griffiths, the father of
protagonist Clyde Griffiths, is a mere "organism" shaped by his surroundings: 
To begin with, Asa Griffiths, the father, was one of those poorly integrated and correlated organisms, the
product of an environment and a religious theory, but with no guiding or mental insight of his own, yet
sensitive and therefore highly emotional and without any practical sense whatsoever. 
Oscar Hegglund, a bellhop friend of Clyde Griffiths at a Chicago hotel, reflects his environment through his speech, a
crude patois shaped by his upbringing in Jersey City, N.J. In the following passage, he gives instructions to Clyde:
Den all you gotta do is to turn on de lights in de batroom and closet, if dere is one, so dey'll know where dey
are, see.  An' den raise de curtains in de day time or lower 'em at night, an' see if dere's towels in de room,
so you can tell de maid if dere ain't, and den if dey don't give you no tip, you gotta go, only most times,
unless you draw a stiff, all you gotta do is hang back a little—make a stall, see—fumble wit de door-key or
try de transom, see.  Den, if dey're any good, dey'll hand you a tip. (Book One, Chapter 5)
(2) Human beings have no free will, or very little of it, because heredity and environment are so powerful in
determining the course of human action.  
(3) A literary work should present life exactly as it is, without preachment,  judgment, or embellishment. In this
respect, naturalism is akin to realism. However, naturalism goes further than realism in that it presents a more
detailed picture of everyday life. Whereas the realist writer omits insignificant details when depicting a particular
scene, a naturalist writer generally includes them. He wants the scene to be as “natural" as possible. The naturalist
writer also attempts to be painstakingly objective and detached. Rather than manipulating characters as if they were
puppets, the naturalist writer prefers to observe the characters as if they were animals in the wild and then report on
their activity. Finally, naturalism attempts to present dialogue as spoken in everyday life (as pointed out in Number 1,
above. Rather than putting “unnatural" wording in the mouth of a character, the naturalist writer attempts to
reproduce the speech patterns of people in a particular time and place.
Naturalist writers generally achieve only limited success in adhering to Tenet 4. The main problem is that it is next to impossible
for a writer to remain objective and detached, like a scientist in a laboratory. After all, a scientist analyzes existing natural
objects and phenomena. A naturalist writer, on the other hand, analyzes characters he created; they may be based on real
people, but they themselves are not real. Thus, in bringing his characters to life, the naturalist writer brings a part of himself—a
subjective part—to his portraits. 

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Source: Real-Life Murder Case

Dreiser based his novel on details surrounding a sensational 1906 murder case in which Chester Gillette, who was born in
Montana in 1883, was found guilty of murdering his pregnant girlfriend, Grace Brown, at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack
Mountains resort region of eastern New York. Gillette was the son of parents who traveled from place to place as part of their
duties with the Salvation Army. After striking out on his own, Gillette worked a number of jobs before accepting a position as a
railroad brakeman in Chicago. In that city, he met with an uncle, Noah Gillette, who operated the Gillette Skirt Factory in
Cortland, N.Y. When his uncle offered him a job, Chester accepted the offer and moved east to work in the factory. There he
met Miss Brown, another employee of the factory, and they began to see each other in secret. After she became pregnant, she
and Gillette traveled to Big Moose Lake and went out in a rowboat. Miss Brown's body was found the following day. Police used
circumstantial evidence to arrest and jail Chester Gillette. After he was tried and found guilty, he was committed to a prison in
Auburn, N.Y., where he was eventually executed in an electric chair.

Trial Transcripts: People vs Gillette

Transcripts of the Gillette murder trial are freely available on the Internet. To review the transcripts, click on the following:

People vs Gillette: Vol 1 

People vs Gillette: Vol 2 
People vs Gillette: Vol 3
Additional legal information on the case is available from The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York.

Point of View

Dreiser presents the story in omniscient, third-person point of view. 

Structure

Dreiser divides the novel into three books. Book One centers on Clyde Griffiths as a member of the impoverished Asa Griffiths
family. Book Two centers on Clyde as relative and employee of the wealthy Samuel Griffiths family. Book Three centers on
Clyde's imprisonment and trial and its effect on him, his mother, and the rest of the Griffiths family (both branches). The novel
begins in the Midwest (Kansas), shifts to the East (Lycurgus, N.Y.), and ends in West (San Francisco). The final chapter, called
"Souvenir," begins with the same five words as the first chapter—"Dusk, of a summer night"—and presents a scene like the one
in the first chapter: the Asa Griffiths family walking along a street, preparing to sing and spread the Gospel. One may conclude
from this structural scheme that the themes of the novel, such as the pursuit of materialism, apply to the entire country and
that the outcome of the novel will repeat itself from one generation of Americans to the next, as the final chapter suggests
when it echoes the first chapter—this time with Hester's illegitimate son, Russell, standing in for Clyde. 

Style

Dreiser tells an intriguing story that keeps the reader turning pages to see what happens next. He is strong in plotting and
character development, as well as in the exposition of his theme. However, Dreiser's prose is pedestrian most of the time, like
journalese—full of cliches and uninspired imagery. Moreover, the playful baby talk Sondra Finchley uses when speaking or
writing to Clyde seems a bit contrived: "How is my pheet phing [sweet thing]? . . . Is he working hard in the baddie old factory?
Sonda wisses [wishes] he was here wiss [with] her instead" (Book Two, Chapter 42). Readers will remember Dreiser most for his
intriguing stories—including An American Tragedy, his best work—not for the way he wrote them. 

Themes

One Man’s Losing Struggle Against Forces That Shape Human Destiny

According to Theodore Dreiser and other writers of naturalism, the destiny of a human being results from hereditary,
environmental, economic, social, and fatalistic forces that act upon him. Clyde Griffiths attempts to break free of these forces
but fails. In Clyde’s case, these forces include, specifically, mental and physical traits that he inherited at birth, the surroundings
in which he grew up, the financial status and lower-class background of his family, and happenstance (the automobile accident,
for example).
The Impossible Dream

Americans grow up with the idea that anyone—regardless of his or her family's background—can achieve success. A popular
song, "The Impossible Dream" (composed for the 1965 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion),
celebrates this idea. Dreiser, however, demonstrated in his 1925 novel that for many Americans the dream of social, financial,
or another form of success never comes true. Too many forces work against them: economic conditions, prejudice, lack of the
right educational or employment opportunities, caprice. Thoreau observed in the nineteenth century, "the mass of men lead
lives of quiet desperation." Clyde Griffiths was quietly desperate and failed to achieve his dream. People like Clyde Griffiths
continue to struggle in today's society.

Climax and Denouement

The novel contains several climactic events. However, the main climax—the turning point at which the conflict takes an
irreversible turn for the worse—occurs when Roberta falls from the boat and Clyde allows her to drown. This event sets in
motion a long denouement in which police arrest, charge, and jail Clyde, ending his dreams of success and prosperity. Clyde
brings shame not only on himself but also on the other Griffiths, and he ultimately goes to the electric chair. Mini-climaxes in
the novel include the fatal limousine accident in Book One and the execution of Clyde. 

How the Author Mimics Playwrights

Dreiser imitates playwrights in one respect: He begins each of the three books in the novel, as well as "Souvenir" at the end,
with incomplete sentences that resemble the stage directions appearing in plays. Perhaps he was attempting to give the novel a
sense of immediacy, as if the drama in the novel were being acted out at the very time that readers were paging through the
book. Following are the openings of the three books, each without a single complete sentence: 

Book One 
. 
.......Dusk—of a summer night.  
.......And the tall walls of the commercial heart of an American city of perhaps 400,000 inhabitants—such walls as in
time may linger as a mere fable.  
.......And up the broad street, now comparatively hushed, a little band of six,—a man of about fifty, short, stout, with
bushy hair  
protruding from under a round black felt hat, a most unimportant-looking person, who carried a small portable organ
such as is  
customarily used by street preachers and singers.  And with him a woman perhaps five years his junior, taller, not so
broad, but solid of frame and vigorous, very plain in face and dress, and yet not homely, leading with one hand a small
boy of seven and in the other carrying a Bible and several hymn books.  
. 
Book Two 
. 
.......The home of Samuel Griffiths in Lycurgus, New York, a city of some twenty-five thousand inhabitants midway
between Utica and Albany. Near the dinner hour and by degrees the family assembling for its customary meal.  
. 
Book Three 
. 
.......Cataraqui County extending from the northernmost line of the village known as Three Mile Bay on the south to
the Canadian border, on the north a distance of fifty miles.  And from Senaschet and Indian Lakes on the east to the
Rock and Scarf Rivers on the west—a width of thirty miles. Its greater portion covered by uninhabited forests and
lakes, yet dotted here and there with such villages and hamlets as Koontz, Grass Lake, North Wallace, Brown Lake,
with Bridgeburg, the county seat, numbering no less than two thousand souls of the fifteen thousand in the entire
county.  And the central square of the town occupied by the old and yet not ungraceful county courthouse, a cupola
with a clock and some pigeons surmounting it, the four principal business streets of the small town facing it.  
. 
 Souvenir 
. 
.......Dusk, of a summer night.  
.......And the tall walls of the commercial heart of the city of San Francisco—tall and gray in the evening shade.  
.......And up a broad street from the south of Market—now comparatively hushed after the din of the day, a little band
of five—a man of about sixty, short, stout, yet cadaverous as to the flesh of his face—and more especially about the
pale, dim eyes—and with bushy white hair protruding from under a worn, round felt hat—a most unimportant and
exhausted looking person, who carried a small, portable organ such as is customarily used by street preachers and
singers.  And by his side, a woman not more than five years his junior—taller, not so broad, but solid of frame and
vigorous—with snow white hair and wearing an unrelieved costume of black—dress, bonnet, shoes.  And her face
broader and more characterful than her husband's, but more definitely seamed with lines of misery and suffering.  At
her side, again, carrying a Bible and several hymn books—a boy of not more than seven or eight—very round-eyed
and alert, who, because of some sympathetic understanding between him and his elderly companion, seemed to
desire to walk close to her—a brisk and smart stepping—although none-too-well dressed boy. With these three,
again, but walking independently behind, a faded and unattractive woman of twenty-seven or eight and another
woman of about fifty—apparently, because of their close resemblance, mother and daughter. 
Dreiser also uses this technique at the beginning of some of the chapters in the book, such as Chapter 28 of Book Three: 
Bridgeburg and a slow train that set down a tired, distrait woman at its depot after midnight on the eighth of
December. Bitter 
cold and bright stars. A lone depot assistant who on inquiry directed her to the Bridgeburg Central House—straight up
the street which now faced her, then two blocks to her left after she reached the second street. The sleepy night clerk
of the Central House  
providing her instantly with a room and, once he knew who she was, directing her to the county jail. But she deciding
after due  
rumination that now was not the hour. 
Foreshadowing

Twenty-five Biblical admonitions line the walls of the Griffiths mission in Kansas City. The last three mentioned by author Dreiser
appear to foreshadow the downfall of Clyde: 

For the day of the Lord is near.  Obadiah 15.  

For there shall be no reward to the evil man.  Proverbs 24:20.  
Look, then, not upon the wine when it is red: It biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Proverbs 23:31,32.
After obtaining his job as a bellhop and falling under the influence of his merrymaking co-workers, Clyde drinks Rhine wine.
Moreover, he goes with them to a brothel and engages the services of a young lady. 

.
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Study Questions and Essay Topics

 To what extent is Clyde Griffiths the victim of environmental, social, and economic forces? To what extent is
he the victim of choices he makes with his own free will? 
 In an informative essay, compare and contrast the real-life Gillette murder trial with the fictional trial of
Clyde Griffiths. 
 In an argumentative essay, defend either of the following viewpoints: (1) Clyde is a victim of forces beyond
his control; (2) Clyde is a victim of his own bad judgment.
 Is there a character in the novel whom you admire? 
 Why does the novel continue to be relevant in modern American society—or any other modern society? 
 In an essay, compare and contrast Hortense Briggs and Sondra Finchley? 
 Do you believe Russell, the son of Hester (Esta) Griffiths, will become another Clyde?