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 

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.

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.

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

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. 

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. 

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. 

• 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? 

Project Gutenberg in Australia posts the Complete Text for Australian visitors only, pointing out that the novel may remain under copyright protection elsewhere.