Skip to main content

American Tragedy 75%

Clyde arrested.

Themes:  Clyde as confused semi-victim of the American dream. Not a murderer, but not innocent.
Rich:  Most (Sondra's family, for example) looking for ways to distance themselves from any and all scandal, though the elder Griffiths makes a point that he will not do anything to protect a guilty man.
Poor:  Eager to get at the ways of the rich through general hatred of Clyde who killed a poor girl because he wanted to cavort with the upper class.
Politicians:  Looking for a way to turn the trial into a political asset for upcoming elections.


I'm guessing the remaining 25% will be all pre-trial and trial.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Napoleon 14 Amiens

"Ambassadors are essentially spies with titles."  Napoleon President of Italy . . . Peace treaty with England (Amiens) in March 1802, with Turkey in June 1802 . . . flawed peace treaty with England because there was no opening up of France for trade with England, infuriating the English who thought peace would mean trade. . . tourism, though--Brits come to Paris and admire Napoleon . . . British liberals enamored . . . Napoleon "consul for life" . . . lots of unsettled territories, Switzerland being the largest . . . Industrialization much greater in England than France . . . France in 1802 is about the same as England in 1780 as a manufacturing center . . . Napoleon is basically Anglophobic, complaining of any art work that celebrates English victories being shown in Louvre . . . peace unraveling . . . by 1803 . . .  War May 18, 1803! . . . Louisiana Territory sold, advantageous to both parties.  France gets money; USA gets land.  France avoids possible war with ...

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...

Factual basis of American Tragedy: Wikipedia

Dreiser based the book on a notorious criminal case. On July 11, 1906, resort owners found an overturned boat and the body of 20-year-old  Grace Brown  at  Big Moose Lake  in the  Adirondack Mountains  of  Upstate New York .  Chester Gillette  was put on trial and convicted of killing Brown, though he claimed that her death was a suicide. Gillette was executed by electric chair on March 30, 1908. [1] The murder trial drew international attention when Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for several years before writing his novel, during which he studied the case closely. He based Clyde Griffiths on Chester Gillette, deliberately giving him the same initials.