Home In Bookmarks Essays Content Contacts
English literature Italian literature Literary essays World literature German literature
Review of the novel Titan.
- artistic analysis.
Dreiser Theodore
«...There was a growing belief among the broad strata of the nation that a bunch of bigwigs — titans without a soul and without a heart, seeking to chain the people in chains of slavery, were sitting at the top."
T. Dreiser.
"Titan"
"Titan" is the second novel of the" Trilogy of Desire", conceived by Dreiser at the end of the first decade of our century and completed only during the Second World War.
Only two years have passed between the appearance of the first and second novels of the trilogy.
The publication of the third was postponed for more than thirty years (1947).
"The Financier", as you know, was published in 1912.
Among the numerous responses to it that appeared in the press at that time, a review by the famous critic Henry Mencken draws attention to itself, which concluded with the words: "This is not the drama itself, but rather the prologue to it.
(This material will help you to correctly write a review of the novel Titan on the topic..
The summary does not make it clear the whole meaning of the work, so this material will be useful for a deep understanding of the work of writers and poets, as well as their novels, novellas, short stories, plays, poems.)
A true tragicomedy of Cowperwood's struggle for power and beauty will be played out in Chicago.
Few people know Chicago as Dreiser knows it.
He has penetrated with his eyes to the very heart of this amazing city."
2
Mencken was right: "The Financier" is indeed a kind of prologue to "Titan", and the events of the second novel really unfold in Chicago, and there is a kind of inevitability in this.
Drawing the fate and character of Frank Cowperwood, Dreiser used as a model the life story of multi millionaire Tyson Yerkes, who began his financial operations in Philadelphia, then moved them to Chicago and completed his activities in London.
Thus, the place of action of each of the parts of the trilogy was, as it were, predetermined, and everything that happens to the hero in "Titan" had to happen in Chicago.
But the point here is not only in the biography of the prototype.
We can easily assume that if the real Yerkes had never left Philadelphia or moved, say, to Boston, Dreiser would still have moved the scene of the "Titan" to Chicago, and not only because he really knew this city like no other, but also because Chicago was the most suitable environment in contact with which Cowperwood's business and personal qualities could be revealed with the greatest completeness.
The action of "Titan" takes place in the last two decades of the XIX century, when Chicago began to turn into the economic center of the Midwest, the second (after New York) largest city in the United States.
It was a young, fast growing giant that vigorously developed heavy industry, trade, finance, and transport.
Everything that was done in Chicago was done on a grand scale.
A producer city and a consumer city, Chicago attracted capital, goods,and labor.
The processes that were turning America into a state of trusts and monopolies were gaining unprecedented sharpness here and were viewed with particular clarity.
Chicago was a city of skyscrapers, fashionable mansions, dazzling wealth and at the same time a city of slums, squalid poverty and shameless exploitation of man by man.
Perhaps nowhere in America has the corruption of city government and state administration, the venality of officials reached such a scale, were not so cynically frank as in Chicago.
In the 80s of the XIX century, Chicago also became the center of various kinds of democratic movements and the active struggle of the proletariat for its economic and political rights.
Strikes have become a common thing here, and the tragic clash of workers with the police in May 1886 stirred up not only America.
In memory of these events, for more than a hundred years, humanity has been celebrating May 1 as the Day of International Workers ' Solidarity.
There is a certain logic in the fact that American writers of the late XIX — early XX century, interested in the processes that took place in social reality (F. Norris, E. Sinclair, D. London, L. Steffens, F. Harris, etc.), invariably turned their attention to Chicago.
Chicago helped them understand America and its future.
It would be strange and unnatural if Dreiser, whose impoverished youth was spent in Chicago, would ignore this city.
Based on the dynamics of the action, from the main conflicts of "Titan", we can say that in this novel there are two heroes, two forces that came together in a fierce battle— Cowperwood and Chicago.
And if the first is relatively simple and understandable, the second has a dizzying complexity, stemming partly from the complexity of social life, partly from Dreiser's position, which was not distinguished by simplicity and clarity in many cardinal issues of American national life.
"Titan" is a continuation of"The Financier".
Cowperwood in The Financier is an emerging personality.
He develops a view of the world, looks for his field and place in life, sets for himself a moral norm, a life principle, a certain personal charter of social behavior.
Cowperwood in "Titan" is a character that is quite established and even somewhat rigid in its immobile integrity.
In the last pages of the novel, he is still the same as in the first.
The interval of twenty years, filled with energetic activity and fierce struggle, the description of which occupies six hundred pages, has almost no effect on the external appearance of the hero and does not affect his inner essence at all.
Already in The Financier, Dreiser showed how Cowperwood's three dominant passions developed: money, women, and art.
In "Titan", these three dominants retain their priority and still determine all his actions.
Let us, however, be careful in interpreting and evaluating these passions, because it is easy to fall into error here.
Cowperwood's passion for money does not mean stinginess, greed or the desire to accumulate.
In the" Financier "Cowperwood is mainly engaged in stock speculation, in the "Titan" the range of his activities is significantly expanding.
He invests money in urban rail transport, builds railways, lays an "elevated" and a tram, is engaged in the operation of public transport and, finally, makes an attempt to monopolize it, which promises him grandiose profits.
Dreiser convinces the reader that any Cowperwood enterprises have one task — to bring money, profit, and at the same time makes it clear that dollars are not an end for Cowperwood, but a means.
This was very well felt by the already mentioned Henry Mencken, who noted in one of his articles that a" specific " dollar is not of interest to the Dreiser hero.
His attitude to money resembles the attitude of a painter to brushes and tubes of paint.
Money gives power, and this, from his point of view, is the only meaning of it.
Naturally, the question arises: why does Cowperwood need power?
The answer is simple: on the one hand, Cowperwood is no different from thousands and thousands of power seekers who have been striving for power with inexhaustible persistence throughout the history of mankind— the possession of power gives him satisfaction; on the other hand, power makes it possible to realize "desires".
It is easy to see that Cowperwood's colossal energy and titanic struggle are in contradiction with the narrow goals that he pursues.
Its activities are of a public nature and affect the interests of hundreds of thousands of people, while its goals have a purely personal meaning and are therefore ephemeral in social terms.
Hence the inevitability of the tragic ending of the trilogy, predetermined initially by the character of the hero himself.
The same caution should be applied to love ones.
Cowperwood's emotions.
They do not correspond much to traditional ideas about love, but they are a mixture of sexual lust, aesthetic admiration and a possessive desire to"possess".
Naturally, Cowperwood's "love" is short lived, and his lovers are innumerable.
Critics have long established that Dreiser, along with other naturalist writers, attached exaggerated importance to the physiological aspects of human existence.
In his works written in the 1910s (especially in "Titan" and "Genius"), there is a clear "sexual bias" that violates the overall artistic balance of the narrative.
Love episodes in novels acquire a certain shade of obligation, not caused by aesthetic or plot necessity.
Did Dreiser himself understand this?
Obviously, he understood, although not very clearly.
In any case, from time to time he offers the reader unconvincing, pronounced patter "excuses" for Cowperwood's sexual aggressiveness, references to "restless, eternally hungry for change, internal anarchism, moral instability," etc.
At the same time, we would be wrong to completely deny the importance of love episodes in the general philosophical and artistic system of the novel.
The objective meaning of Cowperwood's numerous hobbies and connections is that they set off, emphasize at the level of personal life "zero morality", which is the ethical basis of all aspects of his life.
Dreiser contrasts his hero with other financiers, entrepreneurs, businessmen, large property owners, but at the same time emphasizes in every possible way that Cowperwood stands out among people of his class not because he violates the generally accepted norms of bourgeois morality.
Here the matter is different.
Successful businessmen, recognizing these norms, violate them secretly.
And for Cowperwood, there are no ethical imperatives other than his own desires.
This is the reason for Cowperwood's principled amoralism, which is manifested mainly in his business activities, where lies, dishonesty, blackmail, extortion, bribery, bribes, demagogy are used.
Cowperwood uses all these "methods" with his eyes open and, moreover, does not see anything immoral in their application.
And in this sense, Cowperwood's love adventures are quite at the level of his professional activity.
They only help to realize his egocentric total immorality.
Cowperwood the businessman and Cowperwood the "seducer" are two sides of the same coin.
As for Cowperwood's admiration for beauty, his passion for art, then everything is not as simple as it may seem at first glance.
Touching on this sphere of the hero's "desires", Dreiser observes a certain caution.
The writer, apparently, was aware of the danger of combining in one image the features of a merciless, insidious predator and a fine connoisseur of fine arts.
Cowperwood's passion for painting initially has an element of self deception.
It is characteristic that, speaking about the financial activities of the hero or about his love affairs, the writer shows and describes, and switching to the area of his aesthetic interests, goes to the style of messages.
He reports that Cowperwood built a house in Philadelphia, a mansion in Chicago and a palace in New York, reports that the hero is well versed in painting and loves it, that he is generally a fan and connoisseur of beauty in any of its manifestations.
Why?
Many critics answer this question without difficulty: Dreiser had no taste!
He knew this and therefore avoided descriptions.
On those rare occasions when the writer gave the reader a "look" at the interior of the buildings erected by Cowperwood, he revealed the vulgar taste of the Nouveau riche, who tended to identify beauty with luxury and high cost.
But whose taste is it — Cowperwood or Dreiser?
Critics say Dreiser!
It seems that we should not rush to categorical conclusions here.
Let us recall that a year and a half after the publication of "Titan", the novel "Genius" was published, where Dreiser discovered an excellent knowledge of painting and the ability to deeply understand the problems of art.
Let us also recall that "Titan" is not yet the final of the trilogy, and the writer could have his own ideas about the further development of art problems in the final part.
In the meantime, we will be satisfied with the statement of the fact that art and beauty as an area in which the hero seeks to satisfy his "desires" is developed in "Titan" in the least detail and convincingly.
Cowperwood comes to Chicago with the intention of" winning"," winning"," breaking through " and, of course, making capital.
Chicago, which is to be conquered, thus becomes not just the arena of Cowperwood's struggle, but also his powerful opponent.
This specific turn of the narrative is due to Dreiser's intention to show the criminal nature of the activities of the owners of millions, not limited (unlike the "Financier") to purely financial aspects.
The image of Chicago, drawn by Dreiser, is multifaceted, multifaceted and contradictory.
It consists of scenes and episodes which describes the activities of the intermediary firms, banking houses, newspaper editorial offices, construction companies, industrial enterprises and public utilities, municipal town Council, the legislature of the state, political lobby, small and large party bosses, etc.
Scene, these richly written, with great skill and very impressive.
Their revealing pathos is distinguished by its power and sharpness.
Even today, after many decades, they do not leave the reader indifferent.
The criticism of the" methods " of big business and the fierce denunciation of pervasive corruption were not inherent in Dreiser alone and were not his sole conquest.
The writer was moving in the direction of the current of "mud rakers", which reached its greatest scope in 1911, that is, just at the time when Dreiser began working on the trilogy.
Having emerged as a purely journalistic phenomenon, it eventually broke into fiction and gave rise to the novels of E. Sinclair and D. Phillips, the" Autobiography " of L. Steffens, etc.
This does not detract from Dreiser's merits at all, because he was one of the very few who managed to understand that political scandals, blackmail, corruption of officials, mini coups in municipalities, party lists, newspaper demagoguery, the division of the "pie", stock trading and speculation, embezzlement and simple theft do not yet form the life of the nation.
All this is foam bubbling on the surface.
And under it, like a bottomless ocean, is the life of a multimillion strong mass of poor people, workers, called the people.
Without it, there can be no material or spiritual values, no politics, no art.
The life of the workers of Chicago is almost not shown in the novel.
There is nothing strange about this: Dreiser had a different task.
If the figures of workers appear in some episodes, the reader has to look at them through the eyes of Cowperwood, to whom they seem like "animals patient, starved, wild".
Cowperwood's arguments about the life prospects of the proletarians, about their ability or inability to understand his dreams and plans characterize him, not them.
Nevertheless, Dreiser makes it clear to the reader that the people are the main force of social progress and it is dangerous to neglect them.
Cowperwood overcame his financial opponents, intimidated some officials, bribed others, blackmailed others, he lured newspapers, the mayor, the governor to his side and gave huge bribes to members of the legislative assembly, but he neglected the people and made a catastrophic mistake.
It was the people who turned out to be the force that he could neither overcome nor circumvent.
The conqueror failed to conquer Chicago.
He didnot go broke, but I was forced to retreat in disgrace.
In fact, Dreiser left the second volume of his trilogy unfinished.
Feeling this incompleteness, he added a final chapter to the text ("Looking back"), full of vague arguments about the "striving for balance", which is the supreme Law, God or creative force, and many unanswered questions.
At the same time, this chapter contains a brief mention of Cowperwood's subsequent activities (in Dresden, Rome, London) and thus, as it were, throws a bridge to the last part of the trilogy — the novel "Stoic"
If the homework is on the topic: "Review of the novel Titan.
- artistic analysis.
Dreiser Theodore turned out to be useful to you, then we will be grateful to you if you post a link to this message on your page in your social network.
Previous essay: Pasternak B. L. school essay on the work on the topic, Miscellaneous, Analysis of a scene from the novel by B. Pasternak " Doctor Zhivago” (Larisa at the coffin of Yuri Zhivago)
The following composition: Songs of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage an artistic analysis.
Byron George Gordon
23 February 2012 Italian Literature
Latest news
Categories English literature
Italian literature
Literary essays
World literature
German literature
Entertainments
Russian literature
Russian folklore
Collected works
French literature
Exam essays
News
An enriched environment for children
BROOK poem
Dictionary of literary terms
Three little pigs (a fairy tale in verse)
Parrot Ass, or The Story of a Disgruntled parrot
"Corinna, or Italy" by M de Stael in a brief summary
Wishes and congratulations on Valentine's Day
Remote hybridization
Essays on the topic
Theodore Dreiser.
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser is a famous American writer and publicist.
Vin narodivsya in 1871 roci in the state of Indiana.
Vin buv dvanadtsyatoyu ditinoyu Review to the novel Titan.
- artistic analysis.
Dreiser Theodore
«...In the middle of the wide shariv natsii grew perekonannya, scho at the top of the kupka sank in the doorway titaniv without souls without hearts, scho Theodor Dreiser (1871-1945)
A novelist, publicist, public figure, one of the most popular American writers in our country.
A native of a first generation immigrant family: Theodore Dreiser
Not only did he quickly gain fame, but to a certain extent he even outlived his fame.
He very quickly turned into a live Reviewer of the novel Finansist.
Chastain 2 – - artistic analysis.
Dreiser Theodore
The labor of the Dreiser's life has begun in Tim visi, if the normal children are grayut in igrashki.
Vin selling newspapers, hiring on ' farms,
Rating of essays
BROOK poem
The shepherd by the Stream sang plaintively, in anguish, His misfortune and his irretrievable damage: His beloved lamb had recently drowned in the
Professional games.
Part 2
Plot based role playing games for children.
Game scenarios.
&quot;
We are going through life with fiction&quot;
This game will reveal the most observant player and allow them
USE test in chemistry Reversible and irreversible chemical reactions Chemical equilibrium Answers
Reversible and irreversible chemical reactions.
Chemical equilibrium.
Displacement of the chemical equilibrium under the influence of various factors 1.
Chemical equilibrium in the 2NO(g)system
Physical properties of niobium
Niobium in its compact state is a shiny silvery white (or gray in powdered form) paramagnetic metal with a volume centered cubic crystal lattice.
The role of parts of speech in a work of fiction
The noun.
Saturation of the text with nouns can become a means of linguistic depiction.
The text of the poem by A. A. Fet "A whisper, a timid breath...", in its own time
Sections Graduation essays Russian literature
Russian folklore
Collected works
French literature
Exam essays
New essays
An enriched environment for children
BROOK poem
Dictionary of literary terms
Three little pigs (a fairy tale in verse)
Publications
ORKSE course "Fundamentals of the spiritual and moral culture of the peoples of Russia" "Secular ethics" Topic: "Samples of the culture of peoples" 4th grade
Puzzles for the child's mind
Summary of the lesson on " Chemistry in my life”
Bart The Rhetoric of the image
Lecture hall
Russian Russian essays and essays on the Russian and world literature of our mighty, beautiful Russian language this is the main idea and idea of the site.
