![]() Grace Brown, a resident of the upstate New York town of Cortland, was found pregnant, bruised, and drowned in an Adirondack lake in July 1906. In this chapter, I will examine Dreiser's use of the flapper figure in An American Tragedy in relation both to his attempt to authenticate the contemporaneousness of the “American tragedy” theme at the center of the novel and to dramatize a striking cultural irony present in the prominence of the type during this period.Īn American Tragedy is based on the Grace Brown–Chester Gillette murder case of 1906–1908. ![]() (The novel was written during 1923–25 and published in late 1925.) One of the significant characteristics of this post-war period was the rise and prominence of the liberated young woman, commonly known as the flapper. It is nevertheless clear from many incidental details in the setting, especially the prominence of the automobile, that he wishes his readers to understand that they are encountering contemporary events of roughly the early to mid-1920s. Throughout the great length of An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser does not mention a specific year in which its action occurs. ![]()
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