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.