The Downfall Of A Corrupt Teenager

Trey Dortch
Mrs. Castleberry
AP English IV
13 October 2014
The Downfall of a Corrupt Teenager The novel, An American Tragedy, is a historical fiction story placed in the 1920’s which is based off a certain event that influenced the author Theodore Dreiser and how he portrayed American society as a whole. He uses a character by the name of Clyde Griffith to analyze how Clyde contradicts with his true human character, Chester Gillette. By utilizing Chester into the story as Clyde, Dreiser constructs how both viewed American society and how their downfalls were similar to one another. In “American Tragedy,” Theodore Dreiser presents a real-life reference through the characterization of Clyde Griffith and his struggles in society illustrate the
Chester Gillette and how Dreiser compares the two is pretty well put together. Just like Chester, Clyde falls in love and while in love, has a love affair with a girl that has been brought to him by some evil fate. Clyde soon is involved in a precarious situation that involves him to choose the path he wants to go down. Instead of choosing the bright path with a future and success, he chooses the dark and evil path that leads to corruption and heartbreaking circumstances in his life. Dreiser quotes that “not merely a story of crime and punishment but of how a young man’s life is frozen by nature and experience into an inflexible pattern and how society ignores the reality of judging him.” Dreiser is saying here that Clyde seems to be non-existent in such an eventful filled society because of how he has affected other’s lives and even his own by the choices he makes. In this situation, people can say that Clyde is looked at as the prey, not the predator which allows the title of the book to have an similar outlook to determining someone’s tragic fate. Clyde had a quest for an intriguing social status and his prayers would soon be answered with Roberta Alden entering his life. Dreiser quotes: "His [Clyde] was a disposition easily and often intensely inflamed by the chemistry of sex and the formula of beauty. He could not easily withstand appeal, let alone the call of sex." This example shows that Clyde's developing
While reflecting on Clyde’s past, his family knows that Clyde always inside knew what the right thing to do was but he never put his intelligent mind to the test and put it to good use because he seemed to be arrogant and lazy about his life. Wyant expresses that when destiny comes about, no matter what the main character is able to pull of his/her bag of tricks, fate somehow finds a way to poke one in the eye. By being put into tough situations, those characters are the ones who must and possibly will face the agony and despair of their consequences (Dreiser 7). “For the first time in his life, it occurred to him that if he wanted to get on, he ought to insinuate himself into the good graces of people - do or say something that would make them like him.” Dreiser expresses in his quote here that Clyde obviously was never really a people person with the exception of his family. However, Clyde saw a man walk into a store and realized that nobody cares about your appearance but how one is as a true person and how humble one is as well. Without no knowledge of people traits, doesn’t mean becoming someone better isn’t what you should do. Basically, this can be considered Dreiser’s point in parts of the novel (Dreiser 30). Whether it’s fate meant to be determined by one’s actions or whether it is just fate stabbing one in the back, the fact of the matter is that people want to live every day like it is their