DOCSLIB.ORG

In This Issue

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
In This Issue V O L U M E I, N O . 2 LN A T H E A M E R I C A N L I T E R A R Y N A T U R A L I S M N EWSLETTER Ship Manifest, the Lady Letty: In This Issue: The past year has been a good one for Ameri- can literary naturalism, and I have it on fine Features authority (Madame Sosostris) that Norris, Crane, London, Dreiser, and Garland are enjoying them- Naturalism in the Classroom selves immensely. And for good reason, for there is much noteworthy news: Teaching Literary Naturalism in Poland 2 First and foremost, the fall semester saw the Larry Hussman publication of the first issue of the new journal Studies in American Naturalism. We here at ALN On Teaching Naturalism 5 want to congratulate the editors of SAN, Keith Toby Widdicombe Newlin and Stephen Brennan, for bringing this fine journal to life, and we wish them and the journal “Excellent People”: Naturalism, Egotism, and 10 continued success. the Teaching of Crane’s Maggie In addition, I’m pleased to pass along the Joseph Church pleasant news that ALN is being fully indexed in the MLA Bibliography, and in the future we hope to Critical Editions of Edith Wharton’s The House 16 be able to make back issues of ALN available in pdf of Mirth: Theoretical and Pedagogical form through the web (so stay tuned for that). Considerations Finally, we here at ALN are looking forward to Gary Totten the ALA Symposium on American Literary Natu- ralism this coming October. For more information Interview on what will likely be the highlight of 2007 for scholars of American literary naturalism, see the Ten Questions with Yoshinobu Hakutani 22 call-for-papers included in this issue of ALN. There are many fine folks who deserve thanks for helping to put this issue of ALN together, and I Departments cannot list them all, but special thanks go to Larry Hussman, Toby Widdicombe, Joseph Church, Gary Five on Twenty-One 21 Totten, Yoshinobu Hakutani, and Jeanne Campbell Light reading for a Klondike vacation Reesman for their fine contributions to this issue. And my continued thanks go to Steven Frye for his Naturalism News 27 tireless assistance. I would also like to thank eve- Inadvertently overlooked on the Drudge Report ryone who took the time to write to me about the inaugural issue of ALN last October: I truly appre- The Call of the Papers 32 ciate all of the feedback. “More travel funding?”—your Dean I look forward to seeing many of you at the ALA in Boston in May, and at the ALA Symposi- Bibliographic Update 33 um on American Literary Naturalism in October. “I can’t find anything on Crane!”—your students Till then, I hope you enjoy issue number two of ALN. From the Archives 36 Hamlin Garland Speaks Naturally, Eric Carl Link A Fistful of Websites 40 For your spare time, of course A LN Teaching American Literary ty Headquarters. It had recently been convert- ed into the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Naturalism in Poland A Fulbright grant timed to coincide with Larry Hussman my early retirement from Wright State Univer- sity had brought me to Poland this first of sev- Warsaw in 1993 certainly seemed a favorable eral times. My duties included teaching semes- physical environment for teaching a university ter-length naturalism courses for both advanced course in American Literary Naturalism. Po- undergraduates and Masters-degree candidates. land had only recently emerged from its com- For the preceding twenty-five years I’d been munist past and the city’s grim, gritty façade performing the same task in American academ- could have readily served as the back-drop for ic settings, so I knew some of the difficulties Stephen Crane’s Maggie. With the exception involved, including the considerable length of th of the magnificently restored 13 Century Old several of the genre’s seminal novels. Since I Town, Warsaw was a patchwork of ugly, ne- was unsure of the students’ reading skills, I de- glected, Stalinesque municipal, commercial, cided to assign them only short works for class and residential structures. These sorry sites discussion, which I would augment with lec- were clustered around the Palace of Culture, a tures about the long novels and about natural- tall tower foisted on the Poles by the Russians istic philosophy. In addition, I included class- years earlier and a pile so unattractive it room time for viewing various film adaptations, spurred the truism that the best view in town though this proved tricky because of the unreli- was from its top because from there you ability of the Institute’s ancient TV sets and couldn’t see the building itself. The Polish temperamental VCRs. The readings included, economy at the time was struggling to come to among others, Garland’s “Mrs. Ripley’s Trip,” grips with its new, market driven base, as wit- Crane’s “The Open Boat,” Norris’s “A Deal in ness the mind-boggling exchange rate of Wheat,” Dreiser’s “Free,” London’s “To Build 127,000 złotys to the dollar. (A former student a Fire,” Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Cather’s visited me at one point that year and I took her “Paul’s Case,” and Steinbeck’s “The Harness.” to an elaborate meal in one of the posh dining The lectures focused on, in addition to Crane, rooms of the newly built Marriott hotel. When Norris, and Dreiser, writers such as Anderson, the waiter arrived with the bill I threw down a Farrell, Wright, and (to illustrate the continuing one-million-złoty note, including the tip. My relevance of naturalist ideas), Oates, Updike, companion was much impressed. Only later and DeLillo. Some of Crane’s poetry made the did she discover I had spent less than four dol- syllabus too, along with Edgar Lee Masters’ lars on her). In those days too, homeless new- and Edwin Arlington Robinson’s. Among the comers from countries to the east joined local films viewed were Greed, William Wyler’s unfortunates begging for handouts at every Carrie, A Place in the Sun, The Call of the street corner. The sidewalks were nearly al- Wild, The Grapes of Wrath and the Gary ways a muddy mess. The interior of the build- Sinise-directed Of Mice and Men, the latter ing housing the University of Warsaw’s Insti- then showing at local theaters. Since the Euro- tute of English Studies, the venue in which I pean model of higher education has always was to teach, featured a labyrinth of narrow, been dominated by the lecture system, and be- forlorn hallways leading to paint-peeled, cause, for most of my students, I was their first cramped classrooms crammed with mis- American instructor, it took them a few weeks matched chairs. But the Poles’ hopes for a bet- to adjust to my method of instigating class dis- ter future were symbolized by the imposing cussion through questions. It took far less time structure that formerly housed Communist Par- for me to learn that nearly all of the students 2 V O L U M E I, N O . 2 were notably bright. As they overcame their logic of such a stance. Another colleague, an initial shock at being called on and answered American woman poet who had taught in Po- my questions, their responses were invariably land for twenty years, took me on All Souls thoughtful and perceptive. Day to the large, crowded cemetery where most Besides my early uncertainty about reading of the Warsaw Uprising dead are buried. I’ll skills, I wasn’t sure how the naturalists’ philos- not soon forget that grey-autumn late afternoon, ophy of deterministic meaninglessness and re- the wind blowing brown leaves against the jection of free will would be received by my simple tombstones and threatening the small- predominately Roman Catholic charges. But candle flames alight on each one. My compan- the first few class discussions dissipated that ion pointed to a particular marker that read worry, along with any lingering doubts about simply “Soldier, fourteen.” the students’ spoken English (I’d been told be- I later found, though, that however strong- fore arriving that, though my knowing a little willed the students might be, they were also tongue-twisting Polish would help in navi- capable of a striking empathy for suffering. gating the city, it was to be avoided in the This was demonstrated most forcefully by their classroom). I immediately discovered that reaction to the Steinbeck films. (Polish stu- most of the students’ personal points of view dents have a keen interest in and sophisticated meshed seamlessly with the writers they were approach to movies, as would be expected studying. Unlike U.S. collegians who typically since their country has such a rich motion pic- resist naturalistic ideas, these students readily ture making tradition). The scene in Of Mice accepted them, though they were at first sur- and Men where Candy’s dog is shot induced prised to encounter such gloom among “privi- several students’ audible sobs and when the leged” American writers. A bit later in the first lights went up after George kills Lenny (played semester I commented to a Polish professor at so superbly by John Malkovich), there was not the Institute about the students’ ready ac- a dry eye evident. I don’t wish to leave the im- ceptance of dark determinism, and he told me pression that my Polish students were chroni- that the stereotype of the Poles as religiously cally morose, however.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Gathering Light
    A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly In Brief Based on a real-life murder which shocked turn-of-the-century America, A Gathering Light is the story of the coming of age of a strong, selfless heroine. Mattie is torn between her familial responsibilities, her desire to be a writer, and the excitement of a first romance. Her dilemmas and choices are quietly reflected in the life of a young woman found drowned in a lake, a woman whom Mattie gets to know only through a bundle of letters left in her possession. The tale of the drowned girl merges with Mattie’s own story, giving her the courage to define her own future. In Detail Inspired by the infamous case of the People vs. Chester Gillette (the basis for Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy and the classic 1950 movie A Place in the Sun), Jennifer Donnelly reinvents the story of the murder of Grace Brown, finding in it a different, warmer light. It is July 1906, and seventeen-year-old Mattie Gokey is spending her first summer away from home. She is working the busy holiday season in an Adirondacks hotel, earning the money her family needs to maintain its run-down farm, and saving up to set up home with her fiancé. When a young woman is found drowned in the nearby lake, Mattie finds herself in possession of a secret that may prove impossible to keep: the day before, the woman gave her a bundle of letters which Mattie promised to burn. As the local men search for the woman’s partner and suspicions grow as to the circumstances of her death, Mattie recounts the previous four months
    [Show full text]
  • Download File
    The Outward Turn: Personality, Blankness, and Allure in American Modernism Anne Claire Diebel Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Anne Claire Diebel All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Outward Turn: Personality, Blankness, and Allure in American Modernism Anne Claire Diebel The history of personality in American literature has surprisingly little to do with the differentiating individuality we now tend to associate with the term. Scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American culture have defined personality either as the morally vacuous successor to the Protestant ideal of character or as the equivalent of mass-media celebrity. In both accounts, personality is deliberately constructed and displayed. However, hiding in American writings of the long modernist period (1880s–1940s) is a conception of personality as the innate capacity, possessed by few, to attract attention and elicit projection. Skeptical of the great American myth of self-making, such writers as Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, Gertrude Stein, Nathanael West, and Langston Hughes invented ways of representing individuals not by stable inner qualities but by their fascinating—and, often, gendered and racialized—blankness. For these writers, this sense of personality was not only an important theme and formal principle of their fiction and non-fiction writing; it was also a professional concern made especially salient by the rise of authorial celebrity. This dissertation both offers an alternative history of personality in American literature and culture and challenges the common critical assumption that modernist writers took the interior life to be their primary site of exploration and representation.
    [Show full text]
  • Foot – Loose! Newsletter of the Susquehanna Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), Published Quarterly – January, April, July, and October
    Foot – Loose! Newsletter of the Susquehanna Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), published quarterly – January, April, July, and October Volume 26, Number 3 July 2014 Waiting for Spring – Bluebirds auf dem Zauberg (on Magic Mountain) by Erika Baker-Heinegg After a few articles on Conservation and Ecology, turning to a cold of the fridge and they would be less wriggly. I did not see kinder outlook on nature presented itself when picking up an old the bluebirds again until April 1st when we had a covering of friend, “A Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold. In his one inch of snow. With a brush I cleared the snow from a nearby musings he pointed out that the first sign of spring is the return flat stone about eight to nine feet away from the nesting box on of the geese. They can’t survive if there is any significant the ground. The birds eat larvae before there are flying insects amount of snow to walk in and still ice on the lakes. His story of around and no sooner did I get into the house when the He bird the chickadee tribes that “add cheer to woods in winter” is as scooped down to the stone ad swallowed first one than another touching to all of us hiking and living near the land. He records and another worm. A robin came to take a closer look. I got out longevities of 5 to 6 years to some lucky ones. some more worms but had to leave for work. There seem to be This brought me to remember my efforts to have bluebirds nest long absences when I don’t see the birds, but I put out some around my house in Bovina.
    [Show full text]
  • Murder! but How Foul? Determinism, Existentialism And
    Murder! But How Foul? Determinism, Existentialism and Rationalization in Twentieth-Century American Novels with Transgressive Protagonists John Dale A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in English, York University, Toronto, Ontario April 2014 © John Dale 2014 Abstract Humans tend to blunt the horror of transgressive violence by “containing” it in a potentially explicatory system. This thesis investigates whether a range of transgressive protagonists from canonical twentieth-century American novels are “contained” in this way by reference to philosophical or sociological systems powerful at the time of writing, and further whether the systems involved tracked the roughly mid-century switch of emphasis from determinism to philosophies valorizing individual autonomy (such as existentialism). These propositions were found to be broadly justified, but there were significant nuances. For example, Humbert Humbert, the protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, at first rejoices in his autonomy from normative ethical standards, but comes to realize that such autonomy can exists only as long as he confines himself to the world of the imagination. On the other hand, Clyde Griffiths, the socially and economically determined protagonist of Theodore Dreiser’s American Tragedy, achieves a kind of proto-existential isolation in his quest for an understanding of his “criminal” responsibility. Richard Wright, from mid-century, created both determinist and existential transgressive protagonists, but his work is most obviously characterized by a third element—a half-unexplained volcanic rage. In many of the novels examined it was found that horror at the crime of the transgressive protagonist was further derailed by narratological ploys, including the manipulation of the reader’s engagement with, or sympathy for, the protagonist— sometimes by the use of humour.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT TRUE CRIME DOES PAY: NARRATIVES of WRONGDOING in FILM and LITERATURE Andrew Burt, Ph.D. Department of English Norther
    ABSTRACT TRUE CRIME DOES PAY: NARRATIVES OF WRONGDOING IN FILM AND LITERATURE Andrew Burt, Ph.D. Department of English Northern Illinois University, 2017 Scott Balcerzak, Director This dissertation examines true crime’s ubiquitous influence on literature, film, and culture. It dissects how true-crime narratives affect crime fiction and film, questioning how America’s continual obsession with crime underscores the interplay between true crime narratives and their fictional equivalents. Throughout the 20th century, these stories represent key political and social undercurrents such as movements in religious conservatism, issues of ethnic and racial identity, and developing discourses of psychology. While generally underexplored in discussions of true crime and crime fiction, these currents show consistent shifts from a liberal rehabilitative to a conservative punitive form of crime prevention and provide a new way to consider these undercurrents as culturally-engaged genre directives. I track these histories through representative, seminal texts, such as Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925), W.R. Burnett’s Little Caesar (1929, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (1952), and Barry Michael Cooper’s 1980s new journalism pieces on the crack epidemic and early hip hop for the Village Voice, examining how basic crime narratives develop through cultural changes. In turn, this dissertation examines film adaptations of these narratives as well, including George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (1951), Larry Cohen’s Black Caesar (1972), Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me (2010), and Mario Van Peeble’s New Jack City (1991), accounting for how the medium changes the crime narrative. In doing so, I examine true crime’s enduring resonance on crime narratives by charting the influence of commonly overlooked early narratives, such as execution sermons and murder ballads.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gillette Murder Case of 1906, 3Rd Ed
    Otterbein University Digital Commons @ Otterbein Faculty Scholarship Center for Teaching and Learning Winter 2004 Review of the book Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906, 3rd ed. Kathryn M. Plank Otterbein University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/fac_ctl Part of the American Literature Commons Repository Citation Plank, Kathryn M., "Review of the book Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906, 3rd ed." (2004). Faculty Scholarship. 6. https://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/fac_ctl/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Digital Commons @ Otterbein. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Otterbein. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reviews 71 Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906, 3rd ed., by Joseph W. Brownell and Patricia W. Enos. Utica, NY: Nicholas K. Burns Publishing, 2003. 206 pp. Paper, $16.95. When writing An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser relied primarily on newspaper clippings from the New York World for details of Grace Brown’s murder and the subsequent trial of Chester Gillette, the case that served as the basis for Clyde Griffith’s murder of Roberta Alden in the novel. For the past 18 years, Dreiser scholars have been fortunate to have two book-length accounts of the case. Both Craig Brandon’s Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited (Utica, NY: North Country Books; reviewed in Dreiser Studies 18.1) and Joseph W. Brownell and Patricia W. Enos’s Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906 were originally published in 1986.
    [Show full text]
  • GRACE BROWN the Sympathetic Victim in the Case, Grace “Billy” Brown, Came from a Long-Time Chenango County-Area Family
    2B OBSERVER-DISPATCH, TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2006 The Murder That Will Never Die FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE TRIAL AT UTICAOD.COM Beyond the shadow THE PLAYERS From the victim and the culprit to lawmen, writers and townsfolk, the Chester Gillette story featured a colorful of a doubt? cast of characters. Here are six of them. CHESTER GILLETTE The face on the well-circulated photograph of Chester Gillette isn’t easy to interpret. Is he con- fident? Defiant? Overwhelmed? Gillette’s family was prominent in Cortland County. His uncle hired him to work at his skirt factory. It was there, in 1905, he met factory worker Grace “Billy” Brown and the two began a rela- tionship -- at about the same time Gillette start- ed to attend more social events in the communi- ty. Brown was found dead July 11, 1906, in an Adirondack lake and Gillette, 23, was charged with killing her. He went to trial and was convict- ed by a jury. Gillette was executed in the electric chair in at the state prison in Auburn on March 30, 1908. GRACE BROWN The sympathetic victim in the case, Grace “Billy” Brown, came from a long-time Chenango County-area family. Her father rented a farm in South Otselic where she grew up. Instead of staying on the farm, she left for Cortland where she took a job at the Gillette Skirt Factory. She was 20 and pregnant when she died at the hands of fellow factory worker Chester Gillette during an outing on Big Moose Lake in the town of Webb.
    [Show full text]
  • The History of Grace Brown by Kristina Stiles (Class of 1996)
    Preface to the Grace Brown story: The history of Grace Brown is not merely of local interest. The story found its way into American culture when author Theodore Dreiser adapted it into his classic novel, An American Tragedy. Years later, the novel was made into a successful film called A Place in the Sun, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Raymond Burr. The History of Grace Brown by Kristina Stiles (class of 1996) The murder of Grace Brown in 1906 was an event that changed the lives of many people in the small village of South Otselic, New York. Her name is still whispered in households throughout America, and her memory shall live on forever in the hearts of the people in the small, farming community of Chenango County. Grace "Billy" Brown was brought up on a farm in upstate New York. The small Brown farm was a typical, self-sufficient dairy farm operated by the family. "The barn was full of chickens and pigs, the garden full of vegetables and the orchard full of fruit" (Brandon 43). Grace's life was that of any farm girl at the turn of the century. She attended the Tallet Hill school just under a mile away. There she made many friends including her teacher, Maude Kenyon. Excerpts from a diary kept by Grace expresses feelings that she sometimes had of Miss Kenyon. Miss Kenyon has been just awful cross of late. She thinks she is so smart. I can't bear her. Miss K got a letter from Doctor- guess that's what makes her so cross.
    [Show full text]
  • JANUARY 2016 CATALOG Yesterday’S Muse Books, ABAA 32 W Main St Webster NY 14580 585-265-9295 [email protected]
    Yesterday’s Muse Books JANUARY 2016 CATALOG Yesterday’s Muse Books, ABAA 32 W Main St Webster NY 14580 585-265-9295 www.yesterdaysmuse.com [email protected] Terms of Sale: All items subject to prior sale. Orders can be placed by phone or e-mail, or directly through our website. Payment is expected at the time of your order and may be made by check, credit card, or PayPal direct transfer. Institutions, fellow booksellers, and repeat customers may request to pay on invoice, with payment due upon receipt unless other arrangements have been made prior to purchase. All items are guaranteed to be as described with respect to edition, condition, and authenticity. Returns will be accepted for any reason, though we ask that you provide notice within a reasonable timeframe. Our usual trade courtesies extended (please inquire). Shipping: All prices include free shipment with tracking by USPS Media Mail. Upgrades to USPS Priority Mail, FedEx Ground, etc., as well as international shipping, are available, and will be charged at cost (please inquire for quote). All orders are carefully wrapped and packaged in sturdy shipping boxes. Catalogs: To receive future catalogs by e-mail, please contact us to be added to our mailing list, or join directly on our website. Printed versions of all our catalogs are also available upon request. Previous catalogs are archived on our website. 3 1. [Adventure] Buel, J.W. Heroes of the Dark Continent and How Stanley Found Emin Pasha. Complete History of All the Great Explorations and Discoveries in Africa, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time, Including a Full, Authentic Account of Stanley’s Famous Relief of Emin Pasha.
    [Show full text]
  • The 25Th Anniversary of the Borowitz Collection at Kent State University
    FROM CULTURE The 25th Anniversary of the Borowitz Collection to at Kent State University Exhibition Catalogue Kent, Ohio | Kent State University Libraries | 2013 FROM CRIME TO CULTURE The 25th Anniversary of the Borowitz Collection at Kent State University Exhibition Catalogue An Exhibition of the Department of Special Collections and Archives Curated by Kathleen Siebert Medicus, Elizabeth Traina, Samantha Kapp, and Cara Gilgenbach Kent, Ohio | Kent State University Libraries | 2013 CONTENTS Acknowledgments .................................................................................... ii Foreword by Laura James ...................................................................iii Introduction by Cara Gilgenbach .................................................vii Exhibition Catalogue Historical Survey of Popular True Crime Literature .................................................2 Crime Related Broadsides, Prints, and Artifacts .......................................................................16 Prison Postcards ............................................................................. 23 The Wild West Collection: From Outlaws to Icons ................................................................ 25 Albert and Helen Borowitz .......................................................29 Bibliography of Works Consulted ................................................34 Appendix 1: Exhibitions Featuring the Borowitz Collection, 1990-2013 .............................................. 35 Appendix 2: The Borowitz Lecture, 1993-2013
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Wilderness in Dreiser's an American Tragedy
    ROBERT M. MYERS Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isle/article/20/2/377/688230 by guest on 29 September 2021 “A Purely Ideational Lake”: The Representation of Wilderness in Dreiser's An American Tragedy On July 11, 1906 Chester Gillette and Grace Brown rented a small boat from the Glennmore Hotel at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks. When they had not returned by the next morning, a search was initi- ated, and within a few hours, the overturned boat and Grace's body were found in a small bay of the lake. The subsequent police investiga- tion revealed that Grace was pregnant, and that she had been having a sexual relationship with Chester, her supervisor at the Cortland, New York, skirt factory at which they worked. Chester was arrested and eventually convicted of murder in a sensational case that drew widespread attention.1 One avid reader of the newspaper accounts of the trial was Theodore Dreiser, who saw the case as the ultimate version of the American-Dream-gone-wrong story that he had long been considering writing. Dreiser studied court records and newspaper accounts of the Gillette trial, and in July of 1923, he and his mistress, Helen Richardson Dreiser, drove to visit the sites associated with the murder.2 His 1925 novel, An American Tragedy, is an imaginative retell- ing of the murder at Big Moose Lake. While previous critics have thor- oughly explored Dreiser's use of his source material, there has been little discussion of the significance of the Adirondack setting.3 In their anthology Beyond Nature Writing (2001), Karla Armbruster and Kathleen R.
    [Show full text]
  • ANALYSIS an American Tragedy (1925) Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
    ANALYSIS An American Tragedy (1925) Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) “Then in 1925 came An American Tragedy, his great masterpiece and his great success…. The story was based upon the actual trial of Chester Gillette for the murder of Grace Brown in 1906. Dreiser so extended and elevated it that what had been a minor tragedy in Herkimer County came to seem a matter for the whole nation. He went back in the life of Clyde Griffiths…to a time when he was twelve, innocent and well-behaved, in the care of pious parents… If he has ambitions, they are no more than every American boy is encouraged to have. He should rise in the world and make his mark in it. But nobody tells him how to rise. His father and mother are unworldly and ineffectual. He has little schooling. His work as a bell-boy in a large hotel in Kansas City brings him every day in contact with careless money and easy habits, tantalizing him. In another country he might have been satisfied with his place in life. In the United States this would have been lack of enterprise. Clyde has no resources in his own mind, nor any work to be deeply interested in. Lacking a definite character, he is pulled here and there by circumstances. He has an indefinite, hungry longing for a world of luxury and beauty from which he feels shut out and which is all the more tempting for that reason. His theory of success, as in itself a merit, confirms his longing.
    [Show full text]