Scan barcode
A review by anisha_sharma
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
5.0
There are three parts to the novel. The plot is based on a true New York criminal case, and the protagonist, Clyde Griffiths, is likewise based on a real person. Clyde grew raised in a destitute religious home and made a career preaching on the streets. Clyde, a young and frivolous server, worked in a luxury hotel in Kansas City and, due to terrible friends, drank all day. Clyde fled to New York to seek safety with his uncle, where he met and fell in love with Roberta Alden, a poor but moral worker. Clyde afterwards met Sandra Finchley's gorgeous daughter, which was enough to take him out of destitution and into the world of high society. Soon after, Roberta fell pregnant and requested Clyde to marry her in secret. Stay with a poor woman worker or a wealthy woman? Clyde came up with the plan to murder Roberta out of despair. Surprisingly, the situation does not turn out as he had hoped, and Roberta dies by accident.
Clyde was eventually apprehended and prosecuted. In the United States, there was an election, and the attorney general put pressure on detectives to establish Clyde was the killer. After his assistant manufactured evidence and his lawyer made a lot of money, Clyde was still sentenced to the electric chair. Even though God was unable to save him, his parents continued to condemn worldly materialism and laud God's grace. Is it the American dream or the American tragedy that we're dealing with here? The answer can be found in this book. The work vividly depicts the lived experience of the American people in the early twentieth century, in which money is king, desire is inflated, and a general sense of disenchantment prevails. An American Tragedy illustrates not only the grave repercussions of egoism's hyperinflation, but also the corrosive and toxic influence of the money-oriented American lifestyle on human crime.
Clyde was eventually apprehended and prosecuted. In the United States, there was an election, and the attorney general put pressure on detectives to establish Clyde was the killer. After his assistant manufactured evidence and his lawyer made a lot of money, Clyde was still sentenced to the electric chair. Even though God was unable to save him, his parents continued to condemn worldly materialism and laud God's grace. Is it the American dream or the American tragedy that we're dealing with here? The answer can be found in this book. The work vividly depicts the lived experience of the American people in the early twentieth century, in which money is king, desire is inflated, and a general sense of disenchantment prevails. An American Tragedy illustrates not only the grave repercussions of egoism's hyperinflation, but also the corrosive and toxic influence of the money-oriented American lifestyle on human crime.