Alice Adams (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Booth Tarkington
- First Published: 1921
- Type of Plot: Bildungsroman
- Time of Work: The post-World War I era
- Setting: Indiana
- Principal Characters: Alice Adams, Virgil Adams, Walter Adams, Mrs. Adams, Mr. Arthur Russell
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Twentieth century, Social issues, Midwest, Hope, Small-town life, Entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs, Gossip
- Locales: Midwest (U.S.)
The Novel
Alice Adams, the eponymous heroine of Booth Tarkington’s novel, is a character very like other heroes and heroines in literature who test the American myth of success expressed best by the Horatio Alger stories. Like Alger’s “Ragged Dick,” Alice Adams strives to lift herself into another social realm from the one in which she was born. Yet in her desire for a marriage that would satisfy her need for a specifically economic and material freedom, she perhaps reminds readers most of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, who seeks to marry Daisy as a final...
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