tendency of naturalism. Influenced by the growth of progressive forces throughout the world Dreiser gradually overcame the crises and reached a higher stage of realism. s other most popular works besides the already mentioned include: Free and Other Stories (1918), A Book about Myself (1922), The Color of a Great City (1923), A Gallery of Women (1929), America is Worth Saving (1941), The Bulwark (1946). American Tragedy. This novel may be regarded as the climax of Dreiser s literary career. The plot of the novel is partly based on court records of an actual trial. But although the bare details are thus borrowed from reality, the implications and moral conclusions of the story are Dreiser s own.novel is a criticism of the American Dream - the unlimited opportunity and quick success in a new country, where social barriers are flexible. The novel is a study of social classes and of an individual s effort to rise from one into another; it involves also a moral analysis of guilt in the manner of Dostoyevsky s Crime and Punishment.Griffiths is a sensitive and unhappy youth whose parents are Kansas City street evangelists. Humiliated by his sordid family life and by the narrow bigoted morality his parents force upon him, he longs to escape into a finer and more rewarding environment. He works for a while as a bell-hop in a Kansas City Hotel, where he is vividly impressed with the contrasts between his own poverty and the opulence and importance of the hotel guests. Meanwhile a moral crisis presents itself. His sister Hester runs off with an actor who presently deserts her; she returns home pregnant, miserable, and without means. Clyde is moved by her plight, but instead of helping her he turns weakly to spend his money on Hortense Briggs, a vain and shrewdly calculating girl.day Clyde, several other bell-boys and several girls set off on an escapade in a borrowed car . The driver runs down a little girl and wrecks the car trying to escape from the police. Clyde flees to Chicago, changes his name in an effort to avoid his part of the responsibility for the incident. While working at a hotel in Chicago he meets his wealthy uncle Samuel Griffiths, who offers him a job in one of his collar factories in Lycurgus, New York. For a time Clyde s fortunes seem to rise. But after a while he finds himself in a frustrating social situation. He is embarrassed in the company of his snobbish relatives, yet he is forbidden to approach the lower-class shop girls who work in his department. One of the girls, Roberta Alden, attracts him, and after a time he falls in love with her and their relations become intimate. But Clyde s attention is soon transferred to another girl, the wealthy and socially prominent Sondra Finchley. Sondra is the key to all his ambitions; he imagines all his problems to be solved by marrying her. But Roberta is an obstacle on his way to climb up the social ladder; she is pregnant and she piteously demands Clyde to marry her. He is faced with a cruel moral dilemma: shall he stand by Roberta thus abandoning what may be his last chance to rise into the world? At that critical moment he reads a news account of a boating accident in which a girl is drowned while her companion's body is not found. Horrified at his own thoughts, he half-resolves to free himself by ending Roberta s life. He lures her to a remote resort and rents a boat for a lake excursion. His preparations for the crime, however, are hopelessly incompetent. He has registered under two different false names at hotels, and now he betrays by several signs the fact that he does not intend to return to the hotel. At the moment of decision he almost loses his nerves. Noticing his perturbation, Roberta stands up in the boat, and reaches toward him; the boat capsizes accidentally, Clyde s camera swings and strikes Roberta on the head. She falls into the water, she can t swim and she is drowned. Clyde swims ashore and flees in guilty terror across the country-side. He is not certain, whether he is guilty of Roberta s death, but he knows in his own mind that he did not exert himself to save her during the seconds she floated on the water . Arrested, he is tried for murder. The defense argues that he is a morally deficient person who is not responsible for his acts.author shows how different people and institutions work. Clyde s uncle cares more not about his nephew but about his name being involved in the case which can damage his reputation and business. Newspaper reporters ...
