Themes and Characters
Dreiser uses the tragic life of Clyde Griffiths to highlight inequality and victimization. Clyde is a character of weak resolve, driven by an intense desire for wealth and status. He longs for the American Dream and seizes the first opportunity to leave his family in pursuit of it. Coming from a poor, fundamentalist Christian background, his family finds solace in God's word, whereas Clyde seeks material comfort over spiritual. The novel traces Clyde's journey from childhood to adulthood as he strives to redefine his identity and achieve success. As the story unfolds, his actions make it clear that he will never find inner peace or the happiness he yearns for.
Clyde is portrayed as shallow, self-centered, lacking depth, and incapable of rational thought. His path is undoubtedly one of moral decline. His materialism clouds his empathy, and he fails to think logically, mistaking chance events for opportunities for success. Clyde is an opportunist, but Dreiser suggests that his desire for material wealth is instinctual, part of a broader social struggle for survival. Dreiser's world is one of ruthless, cutthroat capitalism that rewards a few while destroying many. Contrary to the American Dream, this economic and social system is unjust and unforgiving. Dreiser's characters embody this theme by falling into moral traps, becoming victims who then victimize others, and ultimately becoming prey to an unfair system.
Clyde's moral decline begins at sixteen when his sexual drive spirals out of control and he becomes fixated on acquiring money and fine clothes to attract girls. He lands a job as a bellhop in a glamorous Kansas City hotel, and with money in hand, he gets a taste of the life he desires. Later, Clyde meets a wealthy uncle and follows him to New York to work in his factory. Early incidents in the novel reveal Clyde's lack of moral judgment and suggest that he will likely continue to stray from his parents' influence.
Temptation dominates Clyde's life, and accountability is absent. When his sister Esta becomes pregnant, Clyde opts to buy a fur coat for a woman he desires rather than help Esta with his money. When Clyde and a friend accidentally hit and kill a young girl with their car, he chooses to flee the scene instead of facing the consequences. Clyde's actions grow increasingly irresponsible; ultimately, when his girlfriend Roberta becomes pregnant, he devises a plan to get rid of her rather than sacrifice his chance for upper-class acceptance by marrying a wealthy woman.
Clyde finds himself belonging to neither the lower class nor the upper class, leaving him stuck between two worlds. In this state of alienation and frustration, Clyde is unable to take action until Roberta becomes pregnant and expects marriage, forcing him to make a move. His desperation, fear of social failure and poverty, and the slim hope of marrying into a wealthy family push Clyde towards the seemingly easy solution of staging a boating accident that results in Roberta's death. Trapped, Clyde loses his ability to think ethically or make moral decisions.
Like many of Dreiser's characters, Clyde is weak-willed and unable to rationalize, making him a victim of random events and circumstances. The young girl's death in the hit-and-run incident was accidental, not intentional, and Clyde's failure to take responsibility reveals Dreiser's aim to show how Clyde's instinct for self-preservation kicks in when he is at risk. He didn't intend to kill the girl; it just happened. Clyde doesn't question the morality of fleeing the scene, just as he doesn't question buying a fur coat for Hortense Briggs instead of using the money to help his...
(This entire section contains 1217 words.)
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sister. Clyde is single-minded in his mission, believing that making moral choices would hinder his goals.
The characters in Dreiser's world are not as self-centered as Clyde Griffiths. They represent Dreiser's view of a world full of contrasts, where poverty sits alongside wealth and immorality is often necessary for success and social standing. Samuel Griffiths, Clyde's wealthy uncle, contrasts sharply with Clyde's poor father, and it is no surprise that Clyde chooses to follow his uncle's path rather than his father's influence. Clyde instinctively opts for wealth over poverty, choosing his uncle over his father, Hortense over his sister Esta, and socialite Sondra Finchley over factory worker Roberta Alden. Each of these decisions further entraps Clyde in his tragic life. When he chooses Sondra over Roberta, he reaches a point of no return. Driven by greed and deceit, he loses all sense of right and wrong.
Clyde feels ensnared in a world of contrasts, isolated from society, especially in Lycurgus, where he is shunned by the upper class because of his background and by the lower class because he is a factory boss. Shortly after beginning his affair with Roberta Alden, the factory girl who provides him with sexual satisfaction, he yearns for a relationship with Sondra Finchley, a young socialite who offers him social status. The novel focuses on Clyde's relationships with Roberta and Sondra for the rest of the story, highlighting Dreiser's understanding of the fundamental entrapment that defines the human condition.
Curiously, the catalyst for Clyde's downfall is Roberta Alden, the factory worker who becomes his lover. According to Dreiser's belief that humans are driven by impulse, Clyde pursues Roberta out of a primal sexual urge. His decision to flee the car accident and later take Roberta as his mistress might seem unconnected. However, in the first scenario, Clyde is driven by fear and the instinct to survive, while in the second, he is driven by sexual desire. Both sex and survival are natural impulses. Clyde's desire to survive overrides the moral responsibility he has for causing a fatality, just as his sexual attraction to Roberta overshadows the fact that a relationship with a factory girl disrupts his ambitions for wealth and social status.
Dreiser adopted a social interpretation of Darwin's theory: that humans, like animals, compete for resources in an instinctual fight for survival. Clyde Griffiths, therefore, acts out of a survival instinct, reacting to what he perceives as threats. He feels endangered by his circumstances and fears for his future. When Roberta becomes pregnant, he devises a plan to kill her out of desperation, believing her death would free him from the burdens of responsibility and allow him to pursue Sondra, who represents a gateway to upper-class connections and financial security.
There is no question that Clyde intends to murder Roberta, but his actual culpability for her death remains contentious. At the scene of the boating accident, Clyde succumbs to temptation once more. Accidentally striking her with the camera makes her death seem like an accident, and it is easy for him to let the "accident" play out. Clyde's choice not to save Roberta when she falls into the water is essentially a decision not to act. He is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by electric chair. Through this punishment, Dreiser implies that Clyde is less to blame than the instinctual drives and societal pressures that influenced him. Clyde Griffiths conceived of a crime, and the events unfolded due to timing and inaction. Depicted as more of a victim than a murderer, Clyde is shown as a casualty of both the corrupting American social system and the judicial system that held him accountable for a death he did not directly cause.
