Volume 4, Number 9 · June 3, 1965
Hard Times
By Ellen Moers
Dreiser
by W.A. Swanberg
Scribner's, 576 pp., $10.00
Fate gave Dreiser a great subject which we now call juvenile delinquency. A less efficient propagandist than is generally realized, Dreiser called the problem a Tragedy, and merely an American tragedy—for, under the bluster, he was a modest artist. His sexually delinquent girls and criminally delinquent boys are his heroes and heroines, the central self, the 'I' of his novels. They are also the repository of social concern, a scandal to the respectable, a responsibility to the teacher, an enemy to the policeman, a trial to the judge; the 'they' of fiction as well as of sociology. Finally, they are the children of their parents and the sisters and brothers of their brothers and sisters, the you-we of the human family.
Review, 2989 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |