The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
In the novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham, William Dean Howells makes a particular point about the morals of an individual in the business world. His point is that an individual, such as Silas, must check their morals at the door if they have any plans to make it in the business world. The novel has always been popular, partly because it presents Lapham's financial and social failure as "consciously and deliberately chosen" when he has to decide whether he shall cheat and stay on top in business or tell the truth and fail irrecoverably (Gibson 283). The Rise of Silas Lapham is a novel that deals with the potential moral corruption of a man by money. The outward signs of Silas Lapham's corruption are his attempts to buy his way into social acceptance with a costly house and to buy his way out of moral responsibility through the deliberately unwise loan to a former partner and victim. The loan, made with money that his wife prevented him from spending on the house, is a complication that is neither accidental nor trivial. His eventual "rise" is a moral one resulting from the rejection of a legally sound but purely materialistic standard. It is accompanied by a corresponding adjustment in his understanding of the meaning of social differences, and a return to the "tradition" which had given his own family life solidity and dignity (Bennet 150). By using setting, symbolism and characterization, William Dean Howells writes about the conflicts of an individual and the world of big business, in the 19th century.
The setting is a crucial part of the story. The Rise of Silas Lapham is set in the city of Boston, Massachusetts in the late 19th century. If the story where set anyw...
... middle of paper ...
...terature. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 3. Marshall Cavendice Corporation: New York, 1991. 932-945.
Kirk, Clara Manburg. W.D. Howells and Art In His Time. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1965.
Petry, Alice Hall. "William Dean Howells." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 4. Englewood Cliffs: Salem Press, 1983. 1,368-1,379.
Pizer, Donald. "The Ethnical Unity of The Rise of Silas Lapham." Critics on William Dean Howells. Ed. Paul A. Eschholz. Coral Garden: University of Miami Press. 80-83.
"Portrait Of An American." William Dean Howells: The Development of A Novelist. Ed. George N. Bennet. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959. 50-51, 80-81, 150-161.
Scudder, Horace E. "Recent American Fiction." Critical Essays On William Dean Howells, 1866-1920. Ed. Edwin H. Cady and Norma W. Cady. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1983. 37-57
Hartwick, Harry. The Foreground of American Fiction. New York: American Book Co, 1934, p. 17-44 Rpt in Crane,
The society that Silas is trying to be accepted into cannot not find a way to accept Silas, nor find a way to make him acceptable. Although Silas is extremely wealthy, this does not make him acceptable in the community. Being rich situates him in the upper class allowing him to make an attempt at being one of them but in the end he fails because he cannot change his personality without losing sight of who he really was. At the Corey’s dinner party he has problems with wearing gloves while no one else is wearing them, and drinking from the wine glass like it was ice water served at his home table, also the conversation he could not enter into or follow. When he finally does he has drunk to much wine. After telling his War story he feels confident now that’s he has established himself in the conversation so he continues to talk about his paint to Bromfeild. As he goes on these rants unceasingly talking about pointless subjects he is the only one talking because no one at the party cares f...
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, inner struggles are paralleled with each setting. Taking place in the twentieth century each setting plays a significant role in explaining a theme in the novel. Fleeing Greece in a time of war and entering Detroit Michigan as immigrants parallel later events to the next generation of kin fleeing Grosse Pointe Michigan to San Francisco. These settings compliment a major theme of the novel, society has always believed to be missing something in their life and attempted to fill the missing piece.
Studies in American Fiction 17 (1989): 33-50.
...n American Literature. By Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 387-452. Print.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
Pike, Gerald. “Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers.” Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research International Limited, 1990. 90. Print.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heeath Anthology of American Literature: Volume Two. New York: Houghton Mifflin Inc., 1996
Perkins George, Barbara. The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Piper, Henry Dan. "Social Criticism in the American Novel in the 1920s." The American Novel and the Nineteen Twenties. Ed. Malcolm Bradbury and David Palmer. London: Edward Arnold, 1971. 59-83.
Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 1994.
Works Cited “American Literature 1865-1914.” Baym 1271. Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.