An American Tragedy

Published in 1925, Theodore Dreiser’s realist novel An American Tragedy is one of the author’s most critically acclaimed works. Set in the 1920s in Kansas City, Chicago, and small-town New York state, the historical fiction novel is the story of how Clyde Griffiths, the son of poor, itinerant preachers, kills Roberta Alden during a boat trip in the Adirondack Mountains.

This guide is based on the Kindle edition published by Rosetta Books.

Content Warning: This novel contains racist slurs and stereotypes. Racist language is referenced only indirectly in this guide. The novel also includes depictions of violence against women.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Clyde Griffiths, a handsome boy, feeling humiliated as his parents, Asa and Elvira Griffiths, and siblings sing hymns on a street corner in Kansas City, Missouri. The family moves around so much—always scrabbling after Asa’s next fly-by-night idea about how to support the family—that Clyde has had a poor education. Asa and Elvira are naïve and gullible people who expect God to provide.

Clyde gets a job cleaning a drugstore and later secures a job as a bellhop at a gaudy hotel. He learns about sex and drinking, as well as using kickbacks (paying commission to a powerful bribe-taker) as the path to preferment at the hotel. Clyde begins dating Hortense Briggs, a pretty young woman who wants Clyde to spend his money on her. He thinks that he is on the verge of getting her to have sex with him when he promises to help her purchase a fur coat, but Esta (his sister) turns up pregnant and needs financial help. Clyde runs away to Chicago after a night out with the bellhops in a stolen car which ends with the hit-and-run death of a little girl.

Clyde eventually gets a job at a private club. Clyde encounters Samuel Griffiths, his wealthy uncle, at the club. Samuel offers Clyde a job at the family’s shirt collar factory in Lycurgus, New York. Clyde starts in the most menial job possible, but Samuel has him placed as a minor department head. Clyde starts dating Roberta Alden, a naïve farmer’s daughter looking for advancement by working in the factory. Clyde loses interest in Roberta when Sondra Finchley, one of the rich young women of Lycurgus, welcomes him into her social circle. Believing that he has a chance to marry Sondra, Clyde cools on Roberta and frequently misses dates. Roberta gets pregnant. Abortion is illegal, and the one doctor whom Clyde is able to find (Dr. Glenn) refuses to perform an abortion because of Roberta’s class. Roberta threatens to expose Clyde unless he marries her. After reading a story about a couple drowning in which only the body of the woman turns up, Clyde decides to kill Roberta and make her death look accidental. When the moment comes, he loses his nerve, but then the boat capsizes after he strikes Roberta. He does nothing to help her, and she drowns. However, Clyde made so many errors that police soon arrest him. He faces prosecution by Orville Mason, a term-limited district attorney who needs a big trial to put him in line for a judgeship. People in his office and the coroner’s office plant evidence, withhold evidence, and leak damaging information about Clyde, ensuring that the jury pool is spoiled. Sensational coverage of the trial also damages Clyde. He is found guilty and sentenced to death.

Elvira sends minister Duncan McMillan to convince Clyde to be saved (in the religious sense). Clyde loses his appeal, so he confesses to McMillan. The governor of New York refuses to commute Clyde’s sentence after McMillan refuses to say that Clyde deserves clemency. The state executes Clyde.