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''An American Tragedy'' is a 1925 novel by American writer
Theodore Dreiser Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...
. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown in 1906 and the trial of her lover. In 1923 Dreiser returned to the project, and with the help of his wife Helen and two editor-secretaries, Louise Campbell and Sally Kusell, he completed the massive novel in 1925. The book entered the
public domain in the United States Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights (such as copyright) at all, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired. All works first published or released in the United State ...
on January 1, 2021.


Plot

Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents to help in their street
missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being ...
work. As a young man, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a
soda jerk Soda jerk (or soda jerker) is an American term used to refer to a person — typically a young man — who would operate the soda fountain in a drugstore, preparing and serving soda drinks and ice cream sodas. The drinks were made by mixing fla ...
, then a bellhop at a prestigious
Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes. Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who manipulates him into buying her expensive gifts. When Clyde learns Hortense goes out with other men, he becomes jealous. Nevertheless, he would rather spend money on her than to help his sister, who had eloped, only to end up pregnant and abandoned by her lover. Clyde's life changes dramatically when his friend Sparser, driving Clyde, Hortense, and other friends back from a secluded rendezvous in the country in his boss's car, used without permission, hits a little girl and kills her. Fleeing from the police at high speed, Sparser crashes the car. Everyone but Sparser and his partner flee the scene of the crime. Clyde leaves Kansas City, fearing prosecution as an accessory to Sparser's crimes. While working as a bellboy at an exclusive club in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, he meets his wealthy uncle Samuel Griffiths, the owner of a shirt-collar factory in the fictional city of Lycurgus, New York. Samuel, feeling guilt for neglecting his poor relations, offers Clyde a menial job at the factory. After that, he promotes Clyde to a minor supervisory role. Samuel Griffiths's son Gilbert, Clyde's immediate supervisor, warns Clyde that as a manager, he should not consort with women working under his supervision. At the same time the Griffithses pay Clyde little attention socially. As Clyde has no close friends in Lycurgus, he becomes lonely. Emotionally vulnerable, Clyde is drawn to Roberta Alden, a poor and innocent farm girl working in his shop, who falls in love with him. Clyde secretly courts Roberta, ultimately getting her pregnant. At the same time, elegant young socialite Sondra Finchley, daughter of another Lycurgus factory owner, takes an interest in Clyde despite his cousin Gilbert's efforts to keep them apart. Clyde's engaging manner makes him popular among the young smart set of Lycurgus; he and Sondra become close, and he courts her while neglecting Roberta. Roberta expects Clyde to marry her to avert the shame of an unwed pregnancy, but Clyde now dreams instead of marrying Sondra. Having failed to procure an abortion for Roberta, Clyde gives her no more than desultory help with living expenses while his relationship with Sondra matures. When Roberta threatens to reveal her relationship with Clyde unless he marries her, he plans to murder her by drowning while they go boating. He had read a local newspaper report of a boating accident. Clyde takes Roberta out in a canoe on the fictional Big Bittern Lake (modeled on Big Moose Lake, New York) in the
Adirondacks The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular ...
, and rows to a secluded bay. He freezes. Sensing something wrong, Roberta moves toward him, and he unintentionally strikes her in the face with a camera, stunning her and accidentally capsizing the boat. Roberta, unable to swim, drowns, while Clyde, unwilling to save her, swims to shore. The narrative implies that the blow was accidental, but the trail of circumstantial evidence left by the panicky and guilt-ridden Clyde points to murder. The local authorities are eager to convict Clyde, to the point of manufacturing additional evidence against him, and he repeatedly incriminates himself with his confused and contradictory testimony. Despite a vigorous (and untruthful) defense by two lawyers hired by his uncle, Clyde is convicted, sentenced to death, and after an appeal is denied, he is
executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
by
electric chair An electric chair is a device used to execute an individual by electrocution. When used, the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, ...
.


Influences and characteristics

Dreiser based the book on a notorious criminal case. On July 11, 1906, resort owners found an overturned boat and the body of Grace Brown at Big Moose Lake in the
Adirondack Mountains The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular ...
of
Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long ...
. Chester Gillette was put on trial, and convicted of killing Brown, though he claimed that her death was a suicide. Gillette was executed by electric chair on March 30, 1908. The murder trial drew international attention when Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for several years before writing his novel, during which he studied the case closely. He based Clyde Griffiths on Chester Gillette, deliberately giving him the same initials. The historical location of most of the central events was
Cortland, New York Cortland is a city and the county seat of Cortland County, New York. Known as the Crown City, Cortland is in New York's Southern Tier region. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 17,556. The city of Cortland, near the county's wester ...
, a city situated in Cortland County in a region replete with place names resonant of Greco-Roman history. Townships include Homer, Solon, Virgil, Marathon, and Cincinnatus.
Lycurgus Lycurgus or Lykourgos () may refer to: People * Lycurgus (king of Sparta) (third century BC) * Lycurgus (lawgiver) (eighth century BC), creator of constitution of Sparta * Lycurgus of Athens (fourth century BC), one of the 'ten notable orator ...
, the pseudonym given to Cortland, was the legendary law-giver of ancient
Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta refer ...
. Grace Brown, a farm girl from the small town of South Otselic in adjacent
Chenango County Chenango County is a county located in the south-central section U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 47,220. Its county seat is Norwich. The county's name originates from an Oneida word meaning 'large bull-this ...
, was the factory girl who was Gillette's lover. The place where Grace was killed, Big Moose Lake, an actual place in the Adirondacks, was called Big Bittern Lake in Dreiser's novel. A strikingly similar murder took place in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the sec ...
, in 1934, when Robert Edwards clubbed Freda McKechnie, one of his two lovers, and placed her body in a lake. The cases were so similar that the press at the time dubbed the Edwards/McKechnie murder "The American Tragedy". Edwards was eventually found guilty, and also executed by electric chair. The novel is a
tragedy Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
, Clyde's destruction being the consequence of his innate weaknesses: moral and physical cowardice, lack of scruples and self-discipline, muddled intellect, and unfocused ambition; additionally, the effect of his ingratiating (Dreiser uses the word "soft") social manner places temptation in his way which he cannot resist. This novel is full of symbolism, ranging from Clyde's grotesque description of the high gloomy walls of the factory as an opportunity for success, symbolizing how it is all a mirage, to the description of girls as "electrifying" to foreshadow Clyde's destination to the electric chair; Dreiser transforms everyday mundane objects to symbols. Dreiser sustains readers' interest in the lengthy novel (over 800 pages) by the accumulation of detail, and by continually varying the "emotional distance" of his writing from Clyde and other characters, from detailed examination of their thoughts and motivations to dispassionate reportage.


Adaptations

The novel has been adapted several times into other forms, and the storyline has been used, not always attributed, as the basis for other works: * A first stage adaptation written by Patrick Kearney for
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...
premiered at the
Longacre Theatre The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theater at 220 West 48th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Henry B. Herts and was named for Longacre Square, now known a ...
in New York on October 11, 1926. In the cast was actress
Miriam Hopkins Ellen Miriam Hopkins (October 18, 1902 – October 9, 1972) was an American actress known for her versatility. She first signed with Paramount Pictures in 1930. Her best-known roles included a pickpocket in Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy '' ...
, who had not yet started her film career. *
Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screen ...
prepared a screenplay in the late 1920s which he hoped to have produced by Paramount or by
Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...
during Eisenstein's stay in Hollywood in 1930. '' Foolish Wives'' and ''
Greed Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as unde ...
'' director
Erich von Stroheim Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim (born Erich Oswald Stroheim; September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian-American director, actor and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. H ...
briefly considered directing a film version in the 1920s. Dreiser strongly disapproved of the 1931 film version directed by
Josef von Sternberg Josef von Sternberg (; born Jonas Sternberg; May 29, 1894 – December 22, 1969) was an Austrian-American filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major ...
. * In April 1929, Dreiser agreed that German director
Erwin Piscator Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator (17 December 1893 – 30 March 1966) was a German theatre director and producer. Along with Bertolt Brecht, he was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of ...
should produce a stage version of ''An American Tragedy''. Piscator's stage adaptation premiered in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
in April 1932, and made its US debut in April 1935 at the Hedgerow Theatre, Rose Valley. The play was produced as well by
Lee Strasberg Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, ...
at the Group Theatre in March 1936. A revival was produced by the Hedgerow Theatre in September 2010 (the original adaptation was wrongly credited to Piscator's wife Maria Ley). * In the 1940s, the novel inspired an episode of the award-winning
old-time radio The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...
comedy ''
Our Miss Brooks ''Our Miss Brooks'' is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high-school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the me ...
'', an episode known as "Weekend at Crystal Lake", or "An American Tragedy". The episode revolved around the characters' misinterpreting the intentions of biology teacher Philip Boyton (played by Jeff Chandler), Connie Brooks's (
Eve Arden Eve Arden (born Eunice Mary Quedens, April 30, 1908 – November 12, 1990) was an American film, radio, stage and television actress. She performed in leading and supporting roles for nearly six decades. Beginning her film career in 1929 ...
) high school colleague and love interest. The characters fear that Boynton plans to kill Miss Brooks during a leisurely weekend at their boss's lakeside retreat. The episode was broadcast twice, on September 19, 1948, and on August 21, 1949. The episode was also repeated in 1955, when the show was a hit on both radio and
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
. * The 1951
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-olde ...
film '' A Place in the Sun'', directed by
George Stevens George Cooper Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Obituary '' Variety'', March 12, 1975, page 79. Films he produced were nominated for the Academy Award for B ...
and starring
Montgomery Clift Edward Montgomery Clift (; October 17, 1920 – July 23, 1966) was an American actor. A four-time Academy Award nominee, he was known for his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men", according to '' The New York Times''. He is best remembered ...
,
Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
, and
Shelley Winters Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned seven decades. She appeared in numerous films. She won Academy Awards for '' The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ''A Patch ...
, is based on the novel. * Further television or film adaptations of ''An American Tragedy'' have been produced in Brazil (''Um Lugar ao Sol'', TV series, 1959, director: Dionísio Azevedo), Italy (''" :it:Una tragedia americana"'', Rai 1, 1962, regista: Anton Giulio Majano), Czechoslovakia (''Americká tragédia'', TV series, 1976, director: Stanislav Párnicky), Philippines (''Nakaw na pag-ibig'', film, 1980, director: Lino Brocka), USSR (''Американская трагедия'', 4 parts, Lithuanian Film Studio, 1981, director: Marijonas Giedrys), and Japan (''Hi no ataru basho'', TV series, 1982, director: Masami Ryuji). * Composer
Tobias Picker Tobias Picker (born July 18, 1954) is an American composer, artistic director, and pianist, noted for his orchestral works '' Old and Lost Rivers'', '' Keys To The City'', and '' The Encantadas'', as well as his operas '' Emmeline'', '' Fantasti ...
adapted the material as an opera of the same name, with a libretto by Gene Scheer. It premiered at the
Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
starring Nathan Gunn in New York on December 2, 2005. * Critics and commentators have compared elements of
Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
's film, ''
Match Point ''Match Point'' is a 2005 psychological thriller film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox, and Penelope Wilton. In the film, Rhys Meyers' char ...
'' (2005), to the central plot of the novel. * The novel was adapted as a musical of the same title by three-time
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ...
-winning composer and lyricist
Charles Strouse Charles Strouse (born June 7, 1928) is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to such Broadway musicals as '' Bye Bye Birdie'', ''Applause'', and ''Annie''. Life and career Strouse was born in New York City, to Jew ...
. It premiered at
Muhlenberg College Muhlenberg College is a private liberal arts college in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg College is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is named for Henry Muhlenberg, the German patriarch of Luthe ...
, located in
Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The city has a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 census. It is the fastest-growing major city in Pennsylvania a ...
, on March 24, 2010. * In Cuba, the novel has been adapted and broadcast by Radio Progreso national broadcasting twice: in 1977 and 2001. The first of the versions starred such renowned actors as Raul Selis (as Clyde), Martha del Rio (Roberta), Miriam Mier (Sondra), Julio Alberto Casanova (Gilbert), and Maggie Castro (Bertine). * Jennifer Donnelly's 2003 young adult novel, '' A Northern Light'', recounts the events from the narrative viewpoint of a young woman working at the local camp. * In 2021, the classic crime novel was re-imagined in the form of a fictional investigative docuseries in ''The Anatomy of Desire'' by L. R. Dorn, the pen name of screenwriting team Matt Dorff and Suzanne Dunn.


Reception


Awards

In 2005, the book was placed on ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' magazine's list of the top 100 novels written in English since 1923.
Lev Grossman Lev Grossman (born June 26, 1969) is an American novelist and journalist who wrote ''The Magicians Trilogy'': '' The Magicians'' (2009), '' The Magician King'' (2011), and '' The Magician's Land'' (2014). He was the book critic and lead technolog ...
and Richard Lacayo (October 16, 2005)
"Time Specials: All Time 100 Novels"
''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
''. Retrieved October 23, 2011.


Controversy

In 1927, the book was banned in Boston, Massachusetts due to sexual content, abortion, and murder. In 1933, it was burned by Nazis in Germany because it "deals with low love affairs".


References


Further reading


''An American Tragedy'': A Study GuideTheodore Dreiser: ''An American Tragedy''
The Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...
. Accessed on October 28, 2005.
"Double Exposure"
an article about differences between the two film versions of ''An American Tragedy'', in ''
Opera News ''Opera News'' is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to engender the appreciation of opera and also suppo ...
'', December 2005, pp. 24-31.


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:American Tragedy, An 1925 American novels American novels adapted into films Boni & Liveright books Novels by Theodore Dreiser Novels set in Kansas Novels set in New York (state) Novels adapted into operas Roman à clef novels