Flpn Milk Zsuzsanna THE EFFECT OF MONEY ON DREISERS MAIN HERO IN HIS NOVEL

ENTITLED

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

Theodore Dreiser is considered as the father of the American naturalism. He described American circumstances and their way of life authentically giving very serious social criticism of his age. My aim in this essay is to show the effect of money and wealth on the main character of Dreisers most outstanding novel entitled An American Tragedy. To understand Dreisers choice of topics and characters a brief description is essential about the historical time he lived in. The most influential period in his life was mainly the 1890s that are known in America as the Golden Age. This time was characterized by the birth of the American manufacturing industry and the great, dirty, overcrowded cities. He found himself face to face with the process depicted by the trite symbol of capitalism when the big fish eats the smaller ones. He saw this struggle with his own eyes that led to the fall of the weak. Society was divided into two parts: on one side were the rich and on the other remained the hopeless majority.1 This experience determined Dreisers thinking, and finally, it helped him to find his individual literary style. It took a long period while he found his own way in creating literary works but finally he proved to be an outstanding talent concerning both his subjects and his way of writing that was not strictly naturalistic. Partly because his works suggested some kind of ambiguity regarding to morals and partly because he used an easy, fluent style which was similar to that used in magazines.2 This so-called easiness in his language stirred many tempests among the critics. Antal Szerb claimed that Dreisers masterpiece An American Tragedy was really an excellent novel somehow, though it was impossible to take it into consideration as an artistic one because of the reason that it simple had not been written.3 Other critics had different opinions. According to Mihly Sksd Dreiser used an enormous vocabulary when he was writing his novels but he united the wide range of words with a very simple, puritan grammar.4 Of course, Dreiser intentionally followed this method,
1 2 3 4

L. Bizm, Theodore Dreiser. (Budapest: Gondolat Kiad, 1963): 6-13. Cs. Tth, Utsz. cf. in Theodore Dreiser, Amerikai tragdia (Budapest: Eurpa Knyvkiad, 1984): 1103. A. Szerb, Gondolatok a knyvtrban. (Budapest: Magvet Knyvkiad, 1971): 571. L. Kardos, and M. Sksd, Az amerikai irodalom a XX. szzadban. (Budapest: Gondolat Kiad, 1962): 60.

as he wanted to present a very detailed and punctual picture about his era. He believed that the way of communication was an inseparable part of certain historical periods and it had to reflect the reality. However, mainly his language usage misled some of his critics who proclaimed his style grey, ordinary and fairly primitive.5 He began to write his most significant novel, An American tragedy, in 1922 and it was published in 1925. It was an indictment against religious rearing, monotonous weekdays, instilled inhibitions and especially against the rich and the poor. 6 Moreover, it became an indictment against the United States that could not provide its inhabitants with valuable life. The novel based on a true story. Dreiser inquired more than 15 criminal cases when he found the Chester Gilette Grace Brown case. He kept the main skeleton of this criminal act, added his own ideas and rebuilt the story. His method of working was characterized by circumstantial elaboration of details in order to grab the truth7. The novel illustrates how American Dream miscarries putting into the spotlight Clyde Griffith whose aim is to assimilate into the upper social class. The query is simple: what did lead Clyde, the main hero of the novel, to overestimate the role of money and wealth? Clyde Griffith as the author himself came from a poor, strongly religious family. His parents maintained a missionary house and they did not pay much attention to their children. The family lived in an awful poverty. Clyde was always hungry, wore ragged clothes and did not see the God.8 It became clear very soon that he would not be satisfied with his parents hopeless life. He wanted to achieve more. He imagined himself as the participant of the American Dream instead of being an outsider. He was only 15 when he left his parents house. His only heritage was the religious atmosphere that surrounded him in his childhood. His mind was full of noble thoughts. He decided to support his family and to make savings. As he was a young boy he did not realized that the era of saving was over. The effect of money in this period is essential but Clyde still stands steadily on the ground and leaves it only in his dreams. However, Clyde found an excellent job that had a determining effect on his life. We can take this bellboy-period into consideration as a turning point because Clyde became directly exposed to the influence of money. His weak-in-will character could not resist temptation for a long time.
5 6

Kardos and Sksd: 61. Szerb: 571. 7 R. Ruland, and M. Bradbury, Az amerikai irodalom trtnete. (Budapest: Corvina, 1991.):236. 8 Bizm: 94.

The first step was in his moral falling caused by money when he began to lie to his family concerning his wages. In my opinion, this lying attitude reached its culmination within a very short period. When his sister badly needed money because she got into trouble Clyde did not land her helping hand. Instead of human assistance he bought a fur-coat to his girlfriend, who only exploited him. The most frightening was in this process that it took a very short time and the effect was complete: Clyde did not have guilty conscious. He did not even realize that his decision was immoral. He set up his theory. According to this theory the only thing that counts is money and if one has money he gets something for it but without money one has no possibilities. The next significant moment in the connection of the hero and the dollars is seemingly not a direct one. Clyde met his uncle, Samuel Griffith, who symbolised the upper social class. As a result of different reasons he invited Clyde to Lycurgus and offered him a job in his factory. Clyde seized the opportunity because he considered it as the security of his social rising. Still, he had to be bitterly disappointed. Although he got a fairly high respect from the members of the lower classes, he knew very well that the addressee of this respect is only his name. Consequently, he was longing for the membership of the upper social class even stronger. His desire for social rising that ensured at that time money and wealth made him completely lonely. On the one hand he did not have any noteworthy connection with the upper social class and on the other hand he did not intend to build relationships with factory workers because he did not want to endanger his future possibilities. However, Clyde could not cope with loneliness and he made a conquest of Roberta Alden, the daughter of a deeply religious peasant family. The girl loved Clyde and she supposed that the boy could ensure her a happier life with money and social esteem, but Clyde did not want to stay with her. At first it was only an intuition, but later it became an awkward certainty. Clyde had a gleam of hope in his unsolved situation when he met Sondra Finchley, who was one of the representatives of the upper social class and took place in Clydes dreams from the very beginning. Clyde was a good-looking man but he was a weak character without any special gift.9 It seemed to be the only solution for him to marry a rich girl. Thus, he did everything in order to fascinate Sondra. During his efforts to please Sondra he neglected Roberta and when he realized that his

Bizm: 100.

lover became pregnant he could not make his own decision again. A faint beam appeared for a while from his earlier morality when he could not break with Roberta immediately. His hesitation was fairly short and his new God, the richness determined his further actions. It is fairly paradox situation that Clyde got the chance to marry a rich girl when he made his poorer girlfriend pregnant.10 This approach could not been an accident as Dreiser followed the stream of real life. When the plot reached this point Clyde was so deeply influenced by luxurious life and, in addition, he was on the verge of relization of his aim that he simple had no choice to choose. The author suggested that he got into a one way street. Clyde did not want to hurt Roberta but the girl insisted on their marriage because without it her life would have turned into hopelessness. The girls stubbornness in the pressure of time chased Clyde into despair and forced him to make his most serious decision in his life. After reading a newspaper article he felt that he hit on the only solution: to commit murder on the girl who personified a hindrance in his social rising. The whole incident happened in a particular way and finally Roberta felt into the water accidentally. Consequently, Clyde did not kill her effectively but he let her drown into the water. Clyde is not only a murderer. His sudden chance of fortune indicates the impenetrable limits between profusion with full of noteworthy possibilities and poverty without any chance.11 As a conclusion we can state that Clyde was a peculiarly modern hero, selfish without a sense of self, predatory and yet weakly passive.12 His ruin followed because he tried to fully adopt himself to the norms of American lifestyle without any criticism. He entirely acquired the dollar-logic, the idea of unconditional respect of money13 and at the end he became the victim of this regime.

10 11

Ruland and Bradbury: 236. Vilgirodalmi lexikon (2. ktet). (Budapest: Akadmia Kiad, 1978.):862. 12 P. Conn, The Cambridge Illustrated History of American Literature. (New York: Guild Publishing, 1990): 317. 13 Encyclopaedia.Theodore Dreiser. A XX. szzad klfldi iri. Eds. B. Kpeczi, and L. Pk (Budapest: Gondolat Kiad, 1968.) 112.

Works Cited

Bizm, L. Theodore Dreiser. Budapest: Gondolat Kiad, 1963. Conn, P. The Cambridge Illustrated History of American Literature. New York: Guild Publishing, 1990. Dreiser, T. Amerikai tragdia. Ed. Tth, Cs. Budapest: Eurpa Knyvkiad, 1984. Encyclopaedia. Theodore Dreiser. A XX. szzad klfldi ri. Eds. Kpeczi, B., and Pk, L. Budapest: Gondolat Kiad, 1968. Encyclopaedia. Vilgirodalmi lexikon (2. ktet). Budapest: Akadmia Kiad, 1978. Kardos, L., and Sksd, M. Az amerikai irodalom a XX. szzadban. Budapest: Gondolat Kiad, 1962. Ruland, R., and Bradbury, M. Az amerikai irodalom trtnete. Budapest: Corvina, 1991. Szerb, A. Gondolatok a knyvtrban. Budapest: Magvet Knyvkiad, 1971.