 |
An American Tragedy And The Futility Of The American Dream
|
Below is one of our free research papers on An American Tragedy And The Futility Of The American Dream. If the term paper below is not exactly what you're looking for, you can search our essay database for other topics.
An American Tragedy and the futility of the American Dream
An American Tragedy is an intriguing, frighteningly realistic journey into the mind of a murderer. It is a biography of its era. And, it is also historical fiction. But what makes this novel a classic? While society has changed dramatically since 1925, Dreiser's novel, which shows the futility of "The American Dream" and the tragedies that trying to live it can cause, accurately summarizes social mores of this and any time period. Before Theodore Dreiser was born, his father, a devout German immigrant, lost everything when his large wool mill burned down (kirjasto.sci.fi 1). After a beam hit his head, Dreiser's father was subject to dramatic mood swings; this brain damage caused him to became an evangelist (Survey of American Literature 571). Theodore Dreiser, the twelfth of 13 children, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. By this time, his parents were poor, nomadic preachers. Their nomadic lifestyle meant that Dreiser did not have any companions outside his family. While travelling, his mother taught him to avoid degrading and destructive experiences (Hart 236). Certain that his parents were failures because of their strong morals and their constant preaching, he rebelled. Dreiser had no friends, money, social status, or sex life, which he craved. For most Americans, these were collectively "The American Dream." For Dreiser and his most famous character, Clyde Griffiths, living the American Dream -- the ev...
|