Theodore Dreiser

1872-1945

Theodore Dreiser was born in a small town in the State of Indiana, the USA, in a poor family. After his school years he had to support himself by doing different jobs. He worked at a laundry, then for several years he was a newspaper reporter in Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Later he moved to New York, where he found work as a magazine editor.

From the very beginning of his literary career, he fought against the bourgeois writers who idealized capitalist America, and he wrote works of his own to tell the truth about it. But no publisher wanted to publish his books, and his democratic ideas were criticized. Dreiser's life was a long fight for realistic literature under bourgeois conditions.

In his first two novels, "Sister Carrie" (1900) and "Jennie Gerhardt" (1911), Dreiser described the life of two young women in the capitalist world.

Three of his other works, "The Financier" (1912), "The Titan" (1914) and "The Stoic" (which was published only after the writer's death in 1947), give the whole life story of an American capitalist, showing the ways in which the wealth of big capitalists is made.'The Genius" (1915) tells of the fate of an artist in the bourgeois world. "An American Tragedy" is Dreiser's masterpiece. It was published in 1925. It is the life story of a young American, Clyde Griffiths, from the days of his childhood till his tragic end on the electric chair. Clyde came of a poor family and his life's dream was to become a rich and important man in the capitalist society.

In 1927 Dreiser was a guest of the Soviet Government. He described his visit to the USSR in "Dreiser Looks at Russia" (1928). [86] He greeted the first proletarian state in the world with enthusiasm and expressed his love for the Soviet people.

The economic crisis of 1929-1933 brought great misery to the American working class. In "Tragic America" (1931) Dreiser says that in order to end misery and exploitation American workers must follow the example of the Soviet Union.

Dreiser began to take an active part in the struggle of the progressive people in America, and supported the working-class movement. He became a member of the Communist Party of the USA in August, 1945. This was the "logic of my life", as he expressed it in his letter to the leader of the Communist Party of the USA.

Besides the works mentioned above, Dreiser also published several collections of short stories.

Dreiser's literary work occupies an important place in American critical realism. His novels and short stories give a true picture of American bourgeois society and show its influence upon the life of the people.