Free - Theodore Dreiser - 237 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Free

The story Free revolves around an architect in New York City, Rufus Haymaker, a man from a simple background in the Midwest, who remains married to his wife he doesn’t love out of duty and convention to social norms. In learning more about Dreiser himself, it almost reads as if he’s writing about the man he’s glad he never was.

“Free” not only uses the word free repeatedly, it also endlessly chews on a man in his 60s, contemplating his deep regret of staying married, his dislike of his dying wife, his desire for her to die so he can be “free”, his delusions of what that freedom will look like at 60. Some readers might find all the repetition tedious. 

However, the subtle differences of his mental machinations, as he goes over and over all of his regrets and dislikes of his dying wife are example of good writing style. It’s in a simple way, about a life, a long, rich life- career, family, marriage.




Adapted from Drieserworks blog

Khat - Theodore Dreiser - 236 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Khat

In the story Khat, Theodore Dreiser evokes a very real image of Arabia through wonderful imagery. Yet the point here is that Dreiser, in these two tales, Khat and The Prince Who Was a Thief, writes not of Arabia, whatever of the setting he may use, but of the wonderland that some writers create, the land wherein a casual wayfarer may come upon the Sire de Maletroit's door, or again upon the four directions of O. Henry's roads of destiny.

In both tales, his protagonist is essentially the same, the professional beggar and story-teller who is too old to be of any use. In "Khat," the old entertainer finds every gate closed to him, the world walled up, barred, and shut off, a cynical, colorful world, yet somehow not so different from our own.

Vintage painting of Arabian culture


Adapted from Drieserworks blog

The Prince Who Was a Thief - Theodore Dreiser - 235 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

The Prince Who Was a Thief


Theodore Dreiser’s short story The Prince Who Was a Thief is about a ragged teller of tales, forced to scrounge for the smallest coins from an audience who felt they were entitled to his art for free.

 The tale contrasts poverty with the extravagant riches of the ruling class, the Prince has experienced (or will) both sides of this economic coin. Dreiser wrote two stories seemingly influenced by his boyhood reading of The Arabian Nights. This tale takes place in the town of Hodeidah, in Yemen, as does a story with a similar style, “Khat” which also contains some of the same minor characters.


In the story, young Prince Hussein does not escape death as an infant, but is sold into slavery at the age of four, purchased by the master thief who trains him in his profession.



Adapted from Drieserworks blog

When the Old Century Was New - Theodore Dreiser -234 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

When the Old Century Was New


Set in New York in 1801, the story is about  a day in the life of William Walton, a gentleman merchant of Colonial times, wealth and status prestige. Although Walton does propose to, and is accepted by, the fair Mistress Beppie Cruger, very little actually happens in the sketch; its interest arises from the historical verisimilitude that Dreiser gives to the commonplace.

Image - New York City and the East River, 1848.




Adapted from Drieserworks blog

St. Columba and the River - Theodore Dreiser - 233 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Theodore Dreiser

The ninth of ten surviving children, Dreiser grew up in an impoverished household in Terre Haute, but lived most of his adult life in New York City. One of the most important literary figures of the first decade of the twentieth century, Theodore Dreiser, was born in 1871. Much of his career was spent in journalism, including a period working for the Pittsburgh Dispatch. He would become best known for his massive novels, including An American Tragedy (1925),Jennie Gerhardt (1911), and Sister Carrie (1900). Dreiser died in 1945.


Dreiser was a naturalistic author who was instrumental in promoting a realistic portrayal of life in America. He was not afraid to write about sexual matters and social injustice. Two of his most well-known novels, Sister Carrie(1900) and An American Tragedy (1925), depicted characters who were motivated by their selfish impulses, not by their sense of ethics. These novels were met with much controversy by his conservative contemporaries.


St. Columba and the River

Dreiser’s short story St. Columba and the River was initially published under the title “Glory Be! McGlathery” in 1925 before being published in 1927 in Dreiser’s Chains: Lesser Novels and Stories.

The initial source for “St. Columba and the River” was an article Dreiser wrote in 1904 for the United Press, “Just What Happened When the Waters of the Hudson Broke into the North River Tunnel.”

The setting is the North River (the earlier name for the Hudson River) Tunnel Works and the surrounding neighborhood in downtown New York in the late 1880’s, as per articles about the disaster and Dreiser’s own retrospective account..




The plot of the story was as follows: An Irish-Catholic immigrant, Dennis McGlathery, is hired by his “fellow churchman,” Thomas Cavanaugh, to dig a tunnel under the Hudson River. Three times the powerful river destroys the tunnel and drowns the “sandhogs,” despite the introduction of improved tunneling mechanisms. McGlathery himself survives each disaster. Cavanaugh sacrifices his own life with courage that both frightens and inspires McGlathery. Encouraged by Cavanaugh’s example, McGlathery plugs a leak with his own body before being blown out of the tunnel up to the river’s surface, thus concluding his tunneling career as a hero.

Adapted from Drieserworks blog