An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (i can read book club .TXT) ๐
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Clyde Griffithโs parents are poor street-preachers, but Clyde doesnโt โbelieve,โ 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 uncleโs family, and starved for companionship, he breaks the factoryโs 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 uncleโs 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 โwrong element,โ 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
Read book online ยซAn American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (i can read book club .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Theodore Dreiser
Yet she had neither Clydeโs force, nor, on the other hand, his resistance. She was in the main a drifter, with a vague yearning toward pretty dresses, hats, shoes, ribbons and the like, and superimposed above this, the religious theory or notion that she should not be. There were the long bright streets of a morning and afternoon after school or of an evening. The charm of certain girls swinging along together, arms locked, secrets a-whispering, or that of boys, clownish, yet revealing through their bounding ridiculous animality the force and meaning of that chemistry and urge toward mating which lies back of all youthful thought and action. And in herself, as from time to time she observed lovers or flirtation-seekers who lingered at street corners or about doorways, and who looked at her in a longing and seeking way, there was a stirring, a nerve plasm palpitation that spoke loudly for all the seemingly material things of life, not for the thin pleasantries of heaven.
And the glances drilled her like an invisible ray, for she was pleasing to look at and was growing more attractive hourly. And the moods in others awakened responsive moods in her, those rearranging chemisms upon which all the morality or immorality of the world is based.
And then one day, as she was coming home from school, a youth of that plausible variety known as โmasherโ engaged her in conversation, largely because of a look and a mood which seemed to invite it. And there was little to stay her, for she was essentially yielding, if not amorous. Yet so great had been her home drilling as to the need of modesty, circumspection, purity and the like, that on this occasion at least there was no danger of any immediate lapse. Only this attack once made, others followed, were accepted, or not so quickly fled from, and by degrees, these served to break down that wall of reserve which her home training had served to erect. She became secretive and hid her ways from her parents.
Youths occasionally walked and talked with her in spite of herself. They demolished that excessive shyness which had been hers, and which had served to put others aside for a time at least. She wished for other contactsโ โdreamed of some bright, gay, wonderful love of some kind, with someone.
Finally, after a slow but vigorous internal growth of mood and desire, there came this actor, one of those vain, handsome, animal personalities, all clothes and airs, but no morals (no taste, no courtesy or real tenderness even), but of compelling magnetism, who was able within the space of one brief week and a few meetings to completely befuddle and enmesh her so that she was really his to do with as he wished. And the truth was that he scarcely cared for her at all. To him, dull as he was, she was just another girlโ โfairly pretty, obviously sensuous and inexperienced, a silly who could be taken by a few soft wordsโ โa show of seemingly sincere affection, talk of the opportunity of a broader, freer life on the road, in other great cities, as his wife.
And yet his words were those of a lover who would be true forever. All she had to do, as he explained to her, was to come away with him and be his bride, at onceโ โnow. Delay was so vain when two such as they had met. There was difficulty about marriage here, which he could not explainโ โit related to friendsโ โbut in St. Louis he had a preacher friend who would wed them. She was to have new and better clothes than she had ever known, delicious adventures, love. She would travel with him and see the great world. She would never need to trouble more about anything save him; and while it was truth to herโ โthe verbal surety of a genuine passionโ โto him it was the most ancient and serviceable type of blarney, often used before and often successful.
In a single week then, at odd hours, morning, afternoon and night, this chemic witchery was accomplished.
Coming home rather late one Saturday night in April from a walk which he had taken about the business heart, in order to escape the regular Saturday night mission services, Clyde found his mother and father worried about the whereabouts of Esta. She had played and sung as usual at this meeting. And all had seemed all right with her. After the meeting she had gone to her room, saying that she was not feeling very well and was going to bed early. But by eleven oโclock, when Clyde returned, her mother had chanced to look into her room and discovered that she was not there nor anywhere about the place. A certain bareness in connection with the roomโ โsome trinkets and dresses removed, an old and familiar suitcase goneโ โhad first attracted her motherโs attention. Then the house search proving that she was not there, Asa had gone outside to look up and down the street. She sometimes walked out alone, or sat or stood in front of the mission during its idle or closed hours.
This search revealing nothing, Clyde and he had walked to a corner, then along Missouri Avenue. No Esta. At twelve they returned and after that, naturally, the curiosity in regard to her grew momentarily sharper.
At first they assumed that she might have taken an unexplained walk somewhere, but as twelve-thirty, and finally one, and one-thirty, passed, and no Esta, they were about to notify the police, when Clyde, going into her room, saw a note pinned to the pillow of her small wooden bedโ โa missive that had escaped the eye of his mother. At once he went to it, curious and comprehending, for he had often wondered in what way, assuming that he ever wished to depart surreptitiously, he would notify his parents, for he knew they would never countenance his departure unless they were permitted to supervise it in
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