An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (i can read book club .TXT) 📕
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Clyde Griffith’s parents are poor street-preachers, but Clyde doesn’t “believe,” and finds their work demeaning. 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. Two years later, Clyde meets his well-off uncle, who owns a large factory in upstate New York. Clyde talks his way into a job at the factory, and soon finds himself supervising a roomful of women. All alone, generally shunned by his uncle’s family, and starved for companionship, he breaks the factory’s rules and begins a relationship with a young woman who works for him. 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 uncle’s neighbors. Soon Clyde finds himself in a love triangle of his own making, and one from which he seems incapable of extracting himself.
A 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. 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. 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 “wrong element,” and elements of both who care far more about appearances than reality. It offers further evidence that the world may be very different from 100 years ago, but the people in it are very much the same.
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- Author: Theodore Dreiser
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But he was silent now with a tightly restrained silence which he was afraid to liberate in words. For he was thinking: “Oh, if only I could say to her how beautiful I really think she is. If I could just put my arms around her and kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her, and have her kiss me in the same way.” And strangely, considering his first approaches toward Roberta, the thought was without lust, just the desire to constrain and fondle a perfect object. Indeed, his eyes fairly radiated this desire and intensity. And while she noted this and was in part made dubious by it, since it was the thing in Clyde she most feared—still she was intrigued by it to the extent of wishing to know its further meaning.
And so she now said, teasingly: “Was there anything very important you wanted to say?”
“I’d like to say a lot of things to you, Sondra, if you would only let me,” he returned eagerly. “But you told me not to.”
“Oh, so I did. Well, I meant that, too. I’m glad you mind so well.” There was a provoking smile upon her lips and she looked at him as much as to say: “But you don’t really believe I meant all of that, do you?”
Overcome by the suggestion of her eyes, Clyde got up and, taking both her hands in his and looking directly into her eyes, said: “You didn’t mean all of it, then, did you, Sondra? Not all of it, anyhow. Oh, I wish I could tell you all that I am thinking.” His eyes spoke, and now sharply conscious again of how easy it was to inflame him, and yet anxious to permit him to proceed as he wished, she leaned back from him and said, “Oh, yes, I’m sure I did. You take almost everything too seriously, don’t you?” But at the same time, and in spite of herself, her expression relaxed and she once more smiled.
“I can’t help it, Sondra. I can’t! I can’t!” he began, eagerly and almost vehemently. “You don’t know what effect you have on me. You’re so beautiful. Oh, you are. You know you are. I think about you all the time. Really I do, Sondra. You’ve made me just crazy about you, so much so that I can hardly sleep for thinking about you. Gee, I’m wild! I never go anywhere or see you any place but what I think of you all the time afterward. Even tonight when I saw you dancing with all those fellows I could hardly stand it. I just wanted you to be dancing with me—no one else. You’ve got such beautiful eyes, Sondra, and such a lovely mouth and chin, and such a wonderful smile.”
He lifted his hands as though to caress her gently, yet holding them back, and at the same time dreamed into her eyes as might a devotee into those of a saint, then suddenly put his arms about her and drew her close to him. She, thrilled and in part seduced by his words, instead of resisting as definitely as she would have in any other case, now gazed at him, fascinated by his enthusiasms. She was so trapped and entranced by his passion for her that it seemed to her now as though she might care for him as much as he wished. Very, very much, if she only dared. He, too, was beautiful and alluring to her. He, too, was really wonderful, even if he were poor—so much more intense and dynamic than any of these other youths that she knew here. Would it not be wonderful if, her parents and her state permitting, she could share with him completely such a mood as this? Simultaneously the thought came to her that should her parents know of this it might not be possible for her to continue this relationship in any form, let alone to develop it or enjoy it in the future. Yet regardless of this thought now, which arrested and stilled her for a moment, she continued to yearn toward him. Her eyes were warm and tender—her lips wreathed with a gracious smile.
“I’m sure I oughtn’t to let you say all these things to me. I know I shouldn’t,” she protested weakly, yet looking at him affectionately. “It isn’t the right thing to do, I know, but still—”
“Why not? Why isn’t it right, Sondra? Why mayn’t I when I care for you so much?” His eyes became clouded with sadness, and she, noting it, exclaimed: “Oh, well,” then paused, “I—I—” She was about to add, “Don’t think they would ever let us go on with it,” but instead she only replied, “I guess I don’t know you well enough.”
“Oh, Sondra, when I love you so much and I’m so crazy about you! Don’t you care at all like I care for you?”
Because of the uncertainty expressed by her, his eyes were now seeking, frightened, sad. The combination had an intense appeal for her. She merely looked at him dubiously, wondering what could be the result of such an infatuation as this. And he, noting the wavering something in her own eyes, pulled her closer and kissed her. Instead of resenting it she lay for a moment willingly, joyously, in his arms, then suddenly sat up, the thought of what she was permitting him to do—kiss her in this way—and what it must mean to him, causing her on the instant to recover all her poise. “I think you’d better go now,” she said definitely, yet not unkindly. “Don’t you?”
And Clyde, who himself had been surprised and afterwards a little startled,
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