An American Tragedy, Volume 2
'An American Tragedy, Volume 2' Summary
Ambitious, handsome, but poorly educated, naïve, and immature, Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents to help in their street missionary work. As a young adult, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a soda jerk, then a bellhop at a prestigious Kansas City hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes.
Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who persuades him to buy her expensive gifts. When Clyde learns Hortense goes out with other men, he becomes jealous. Still Clyde would rather spend money on Hortense than to help his sister, who had eloped, only to end up pregnant and abandoned by her lover.
Clyde's life changes dramatically when his friend Sparser, driving Clyde, Hortense, and other friends back from a secluded rendezvous in the country in his boss's car, used without permission, hits a little girl and kills her. Fleeing from the police at high speed, Sparser crashes the car. Everyone but Sparser and his partner flee the scene of the crime. Clyde leaves Kansas City, fearing prosecution as an accessory to Sparser's crimes. This pattern of personal irresponsibility and panicked decision-making in Clyde's life recurs in the story, culminating in the central tragedy of the novel.
While working as a bellboy at an exclusive club in Chicago, he meets his wealthy uncle Samuel Griffiths, the owner of a shirt-collar factory in the fictional city of Lycurgus, New York. Samuel, feeling guilt for neglecting his poor relations, offers Clyde a menial job at the factory. After that, he promotes Clyde to a minor supervisory role.
Samuel Griffiths's son Gilbert, Clyde's immediate supervisor, warns Clyde that as a manager, he should not consort with women working under his supervision. At the same time the Griffithses pay Clyde little attention socially. As Clyde has no close friends in Lycurgus, he becomes lonely. Emotionally vulnerable, Clyde is drawn to Roberta Alden, a poor and innocent farm girl working in his shop, who falls in love with him. Clyde secretly courts Roberta, ultimately persuading her to have sex with him rather than lose him, and she becomes pregnant.
At the same time, elegant young socialite Sondra Finchley, daughter of another Lycurgus factory owner, takes an interest in Clyde despite his cousin Gilbert's efforts to keep them apart. Clyde's engaging manner makes him popular among the young smart set of Lycurgus; he and Sondra become close, and he courts her while neglecting Roberta. Roberta expects Clyde to marry her to avert the shame of an unwed pregnancy, but Clyde now dreams instead of marrying Sondra.
Having failed to procure an abortion for Roberta, Clyde gives her no more than desultory help with living expenses while his relationship with Sondra matures. When Roberta threatens to reveal her relationship with Clyde unless he marries her, he plans to murder her by drowning while they go boating. He had read a local newspaper report of a boating accident.
Clyde takes Roberta out in a canoe on the fictional Big Bittern Lake (modeled on Big Moose Lake, New York) in the Adirondacks, and rows to a secluded bay. He freezes. Sensing something wrong, Roberta moves toward him, and he unintentionally strikes her in the face with a camera, stunning her and accidentally capsizing the boat. Roberta, unable to swim, drowns, while Clyde, unwilling to save her, swims to shore. The narrative implies that the blow was accidental, but the trail of circumstantial evidence left by the panicky and guilt-ridden Clyde points to murder.
The local authorities are eager to convict Clyde, to the point of manufacturing additional evidence against him, but he repeatedly incriminates himself with his confused and contradictory testimony. Clyde has a sensational trial before an unsympathetic and prejudiced jury of mostly religiously conservative farmers. Despite a vigorous (and untruthful) defense by two lawyers hired by his uncle, Clyde is convicted, sentenced to death, and after an appeal is denied, he is executed by electric chair. The jailhouse scenes and correspondence between Clyde and his mother are exemplars of pathos in modern literature.
Book Details
Authors
Theodore Dreiser
United States
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mo...
Books by Theodore DreiserListen/Download Audiobook
Related books
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 different recordings of Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 8th,...
Libro de Poemas by Federico García Lorca
Este libro reúne una selección de poemas de Federico García Lorca, uno de los escritores más importantes del siglo XX en España. Lorca, miembro de la...
Bohème by Giuseppe Giacosa
This libretto, originally written in Italian and translated into English, serves as the foundation for Giacomo Puccini's renowned opera, "La Bohème."...
Calendar and Other Verses by Irving Sydney Dix
This collection of poems by Irving Sydney Dix was written in 1913 as a testament to his love and appreciation for the arts. It features a range of wor...
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 9 by Samuel Richardson
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady is a sprawling, complex novel that chronicles the tragic life of Clarissa Harlowe, a young woman from...
Vera; or the Nihilists by Oscar Wilde
Vera; or, The Nihilists is a play by Oscar Wilde. It is a tragedy set in Russia and is loosely based on the life of Vera Zasulich. It was Wilde's firs...
Lady Makbeth des Mzensker Landkreises by Nikolai Leskov
Lady Macbeth des Mzensker Landkreises is a novella by Nikolai Leskov that explores the dark consequences of passion and ambition. Katerina Lwowna, tra...
Rouge et le noir by Stendhal
« Le Rouge et le Noir » est un roman réaliste de Stendhal qui explore les ambitions et les désillusions d'un jeune homme ambitieux, Julien Sorel, dans...
Vita dei campi by Giovanni Verga
A collection of 10 short stories printed in 1880. (Summary by Simona)
Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner
This book presents the libretto of Richard Wagner's opera *Tristan und Isolde*, translated into English by John P. Jackson. The libretto, originally...
Reviews for An American Tragedy, Volume 2
No reviews posted or approved, yet...