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   jamie-wheeler Teacher
   College - Sophomore

   eNotes Editor

   There are not a lot of symbols in Dreiser's novel; it is a work of naturalism, "the literary movement that believed an individual's life is determined by environment, heredity, and chance; survival of the fittest and natural selection govern an indifferent universe."  But two symbols come up now and again:  the genie and the bird.  Both represent Clyde's desire to escape "the stresses of urbanization, modernization, and alienation."

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   http://www.enotes.com/american-tragedy/

   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/anamerican...

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   Posted by jamie-wheeler on Saturday July 28, 2007 at 6:14 AM