It is populated with poor people who desire nothing more than to be rich, rich people whose only concern is to keep up with their neighbors and not be associated with the âwrong element,â and elements of both who care far more about appearances than reality. An American Tragedy, based on one of the most infamous of those real-life stories, is a study in lazy ambition, the very real class system in America, and how easy it is to drift into evil.

Soon Clyde finds himself in a love triangle of his own making, and one from which he seems incapable of extracting himself.Ī newspaperman before he became a novelist, Theodore Dreiser collected crime stories for years of young men in relationships with young women of poorer means, where the young men found a richer, prettier girl who would go with him, and often took extreme measures to escape from the first girl. But Clyde has visions of marrying a high-society woman, and fortune smiles on him in the form of the daughter of one of his uncleâs neighbors. All alone, generally shunned by his uncleâs family, and starved for companionship, he breaks the factoryâs rules and begins a relationship with a young woman who works for him. Clyde talks his way into a job at the factory, and soon finds himself supervising a roomful of women.

Two years later, Clyde meets his well-off uncle, who owns a large factory in upstate New York. At fifteen he gets a job and starts to ease out of their lives, eventually landing in some trouble that causes him to flee the town where they live. Â 16 in the Modern Libraryâs 100 Best NovelsĬlyde Griffithâs parents are poor street-preachers, but Clyde doesnât âbelieve,â and finds their work demeaning.

Standard Ebooksģ64,123 words (22 hours 5 minutes) with a reading ease of 68.7 (average difficulty) An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser - Free ebook download - Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.

An american tragedy by theodore dreiser