| dc.description.abstract | The mere living of your daily life is drastic drama I look into my own life and I realize that each human life is a similar tragedy. The infinite suffering and deprivation of great masses of men and women upon whom existence has been thrust unasked appals me. My greatest desire is to devote every hour of my conscious existence to depicting phases of life as I see and understand them. Every human life is intensely interesting. Theodore Dreiser, 1907 interview with New York Times Saturday Review of Books How do we know the "power" or the "compassion" know them differently, that is, from the power or compassion we may read into a news story except by Dreiser's control? Except, in other words, by his grasp of the human materials and his rhythmic organization of them, the vibrance which is the life of fictional illusion, that mutual interpenetrationof part and whole which gives us the sense of preternatural fulfillment? Except, in short, by art? � Robert Penn Warren, "Homage to Theodore Dreiser on the Centenary of His Birth~ Theodore Dreiser occupies a unique niche in the history of American letters. No other author considered "important," with the possible exception of James Fenimore Cooper, is presented by his critical advocates in such an apologetic, defensive, and extra-literary manner. Undoubtedly, some readers--under the influence of criticism--have been averse to consideration of Dreiser as an artist with a self-conscious literary methodology, and this mistaken impression has led some critics to the ironic position of granting Dreiser the verisimilitude and power of his creations while deriding him as both thinker and craftsman. This position constitutes a critical red herring because it is based on the assumption that content is an entity separable from form, thus avoiding the form/content relationship that would necessarily be discussed in regard to a novel by Faulkner, Dos Passos, or even Kerouac. I reject the idea that Dreiser's successes are achieved in spite of his style. Rather, I contend that in An American Tragedy Dreiser's technique--particularily his skillful manipulation of narrative voice--is integral to the novel and responsible for its effect on the reader. The technique of An American Tragedy is far different from that of Sister Carrie. Such variation suggests an author who knew how to vary his methodology depending on the effect he desired to create for his readers, something more than the "primitive" image given circulation by both Dreiser's critical enemies such as Lionel Trilling and his advocates such as H. L. Mencken. Understanding why we understand the character of Clyde Griffiths is as important as recognizing levels of irony in Billy Budd or structural patterns in Go Down, Moses. Instead of emphasizing in isolation, what Dreiser means, I shall be discussing theme in the context of technique in the first book of An American Tragedy (Clyde's childhood) , detailing an intricate four-level structure to the narrative which illustrates Dreiser's view of human epistemology, morality, and decision-making in such a way as to complement the novel's depiction of maturation. | |
