SOURCE: "The Psychopoetics of Desire in Dreiser's American Tragedy," in Determined Fictions: American Literary Naturalism, Columbia University Press, 1989, pp. 55-74

In the following essay, Mitchell examines An American Tragedy as a deterministic novel in which repetition forces the characters to submit to events beyond their control.

The death of Roberta Alden forms the dramatic crisis of An American Tragedy. Having journeyed to Big Bittern Lake with the intention of drowning her, Clyde Griffiths recoils from the act itself. Only her impulse to rise up and touch him impels him to strike out in thoughtless resistance, then to rise up himself to her aid in a series of movements that capsize their boat.

And the left wale of the boat as it turned, striking Roberta on the head as she sank and then rose for the first time, her frantic, contorted face turned to Clyde, who by now had...