An American Tragedy

In Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, poverty, faith, and ambition collide in the life of Clyde Griffiths, the sensitive eldest son of a wandering street-preaching family. Introduced at dusk as his parents lead a public hymn-sing and tract distribution on a city street, Clyde is already marked by shame at the spectacle of their devotion and by a growing hunger for a different kind of life. His mother's fierce belief, his father's weakness, and the family's cramped mission-house existence expose the gulf between religious idealism and harsh material want. As Clyde matures, he becomes increasingly restless, resentful of interrupted schooling, manual labor, and the humiliations of poverty. He dreams instead of polish, status, and the easy confidence of wealth, especially that embodied by his prosperous uncle Samuel Griffiths. Yet desire complicates his ambition: flirtation with Rita and the emotional upheaval of his sister Esta's runaway marriage reveal the pull of instinct beneath his moral upbringing. When Clyde is finally invited into the Griffiths' world, he stands at a perilous crossroads between social ascent, sensual temptation, and the life he was born to escape. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.