The Financier
(1912) and
The Titan
(1914), he drew harsh portraits of a type of ruthless
businessman. In
The “Genius”
(1915), he presented a study of the artistic temperament in a mercenary
society. This novel increased his influence among young American writers, who acclaimed him leader of
a new school of social realism (
see
Naturalism).
Real fame, however, did not come to Dreiser until 1925, when his
An American Tragedy
had great
popular success. The novel, based on an actual murder case and concerned with the efforts of a weak
young man to rise from pious poverty into glamorous society, was dramatized and made into a motion
picture. This novel, inspired by an actual murder case that occurred in 1906, tells the story of how Clyde
falls in love with Sondra Finchley, a rich girl who represents the elegance and wealth to which he has
always aspired. A poor boy himself, he hopes to marry Sondra. What stands in his way is that another
woman, Roberta Alden, just as poor as him, is carrying his child. She demands that Clyde marry her;
Clyde plans to murder Roberta and takes her boating to fulfil his plans. He lacks the resolution to carry it
through but, when the boat accidentally overturns, Clyde swims away, leaving Roberta to drown.
Dreiser believed in representing life honestly in his fiction. He accomplished this through accurate
detail, especially in his descriptions of the urban settings in which many of his stories take place. In his
naturalistic portrayals, Dreiser saw his characters as victims of social and economic forces, and of fate,
all of which conspire against them. The American writer Sinclair Lewis hailed
Sister Carrie
as “the first
book free of English literary influence.” Toward the end of his career, Dreiser, a member of the United
States Communist Party, worked to promote his political views. Earlier he had visited the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics and, in
Dreiser Looks at Russia
(1928), had offered a sympathetic portrait of the
country. Dreiser's last novels,
The Bulwark
and
The Stoic,
appeared posthumously, in 1946 and 1947; in
217
1983 his autobiographical
An Amateur Laborer
was published. His other works include
Plays of the
Natural and Supernatural
(1916),
A Hoosier Holiday
(1916),
Twelve Men
(1919),
A Book About Myself
(1922),
The Color of a Great City
(1923),
Moods
(verse, 1926),
Chains
(1927),
A Gallery of Women
(1929),
Dawn
(1931),
Tragic America
(1932), and
America Is Worth Saving
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