An American Tragedy (Characters)

Characters

Roberta Alden

Roberta is a poor, shy, somewhat naive girl who works in the factory where Clyde is a supervisor. She is prettier and more sensitive than most of the "factory girls," but these qualities do not help her prospects in life; her poverty and her position as a factory worker consign her to a low position in society.

Although Roberta hopes to improve her lot in life by getting an education and by marrying as well as she can, she repeatedly breaks the rules of social conduct. She talks with the foreign workers at the factory, which is considered taboo. She enters into a romantic relationship with Clyde, her supervisor, which is also taboo. Then, she has a sexual relationship with Clyde, breaking not only society's moral code but her own.

When Roberta becomes pregnant, she first tries to get an abortion and then considers killing herself. Finally, she coerces Clyde into agreeing to marry her. Clyde, however, decides to murder her instead and lures her to an outing on a lake, where she drowns.

Titus Alden

Roberta's father, Titus Alden is a poor farmer. He wants revenge for Roberta's death.

Alvin Belknap

Belknap is Clyde's defense attorney. It is Clyde's wealthy uncle, Samuel Griffiths, who hires Belknap.

Hortense Briggs

Hortense is an attractive but coarse Kansas City girl who manipulates Clyde's emotions to get him to buy things for her.

Burton Burleigh

The assistant district attorney in Lycurgus, Burleigh tampers with evidence in Clyde's case to ensure that he is convicted of first-degree murder.

Rita Dickerman

Rita is a promiscuous girl who pursues Clyde in Lycurgus.

Sondra Finchley

A wealthy and beautiful young woman who lives in Lycurgus, Sondra personifies all the things Clyde values and desires: money and luxuries, social status, and a life of carefree pleasure. Clyde so desperately wants Sondra and all that she possesses that he plots to murder Roberta when Sondra shows an interest in him.

When Clyde arrives in Lycurgus, Sondra quickly and correctly sizes him up as a poor relation of the local Griffiths, and she has no interest in him. However, when she becomes upset with Clyde's cousin Gilbert, she decides to feign interest in Clyde to irritate Gilbert. For reasons that are a mystery to her, Sondra develops some degree of real attraction to Clyde. Though she is young, she is sophisticated and careful enough to be suspect of these feelings for an unlikely suitor. In spite of the attraction she feels, she always maintains a certain teasing distance between herself and Clyde, and she never really treats him as an equal. Clyde, on the contrary, responds to Sondra's interest by being willing to sacrifice everything in order to gain her.

When Roberta drowns and Clyde is arrested, Sondra leaves town. Because of her father's wealth and position, her name is never made public during the trial. She writes Clyde one last letter, expressing some sympathy for him, but she types the letter and does not sign it, maintaining her social and emotional distance from him.

Asa Griffiths

Asa is Clyde's father, a poor evangelist who, with his wife, runs a mission and preaches on the streets of Kansas City. Asa is dull and ineffectual; he does not understand human nature or society, and he does not know how to respond to the tragedies that befall his children.

Bella Griffiths

Bella is the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Griffiths, Clyde's uncle and aunt. She is gregarious and willing to help Clyde enter her social circle.

Clyde Griffiths

The novel's main character, Clyde is driven all his life in pursuit of his idea of the American dream. He is materialistic and pleasure-seeking, and he lacks any strong moral center. He is willing to lie and to indulge in unethical and illegal behavior in pursuit of his goals, and he repeatedly runs from difficulties, especially those he creates for himself. For Clyde, there is no clear line between reality and fantasy, right and wrong. To escape his sordid life, he daydreams of wealth and luxury. To live with his acts of cowardice, he rationalizes them.

The son of poor, shabby evangelists, Clyde, even as a child, is much more attracted to the material than to the spiritual. As a teenager, he gets a series of jobs, from drugstore clerk to hotel bellhop, designed to take him out of his parents' world and into a society that revolves around money and pleasure. A dreamer, Clyde has vague hopes of being catapulted to wealth and status by some happy accident or beneficent relationship. It never occurs to him that he might gain all he wants through some combination of hard work and ingenuity. Clyde is too weak-willed to be the master of his own fate, so he dreams that circumstances will somehow transport him to a better life.

When Clyde runs into his rich uncle, Samuel, in Chicago, it seems that his dreams have begun to come true. Samuel Griffiths gives Clyde a job in his factory in upstate New York. Clyde's entry into upper-class society is not as automatic as he expects, but eventually he does gain the favor of the wealthy and beautiful Sondra Finchley. Clyde sees Sondra as his ticket to the life he has always wanted. So desperate is he to gain money and status through her that he plans to murder Roberta, his pregnant girlfriend, so that he can avoid scandal (the scandal of abandoning the woman he has impregnated and of having an illegitimate child) and be with Sondra.

Although Clyde has planned Roberta's death, when it comes it is as much a product of chance and circumstance as it is of Clyde's will. Clyde is actually trying to apologize to Roberta for striking her when he inadvertently overturns the boat and it hits Roberta's head. True to character, Clyde at this moment chooses to run away; although Roberta cries out to him for help, he swims away and lets her drown.

Clyde is captured, convicted of first-degree murder, and electrocuted, although he testifies that Roberta's drowning was an accident. He rationalizes that it is true to say it was an accident because Roberta's death did not happen exactly has he had envisioned it. Even in the last moments of his life, the line between truth and untruth — between reality and fantasy — is blurred in Clyde's mind.

Elizabeth Griffiths

Elizabeth is Clyde's aunt (Samuel's wife). She invites him to dinner out of a sense of obligation.

Elvira Griffiths

Elvira is Clyde's mother. She runs a Christian mission along with her husband. She stands by Clyde and tries to get his sentence commuted even though she doubts his innocence. Once Clyde's fate is sealed, his mother's desire is to see to the salvation of his soul, and she sends a minister to see him. In spite of her son's death, her faith in a kind and merciful God is unshaken.

Esta Griffiths

Esta is Clyde's older sister. She runs away with a touring actor, who makes her pregnant and then deserts her.

Gilbert Griffiths

Gilbert is Clyde's cousin, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth. He is not as good-looking as Clyde, and he resents Clyde's intrusion into the life of his family and into their business.

Russell Griffiths

Russell is the son of Clyde's sister Esta and the actor who deserts her. He looks much like Clyde, and Clyde's parents adopt him.

Samuel Griffiths

Samuel Griffiths is Asa's brother and Clyde's uncle. He is a successful businessman in Lycurgus, New York. When he meets Clyde in Chicago, he feels a familial obligation to his nephew and gives him a job in his factory in New York.

Oscar Hegglund

Oscar is one of Clyde's fellow bellhops at the Green-Davidson Hotel. He provides Clyde with opportunities to experience worldly pleasures that are new to him.

Fred Heit

The county coroner, Heit is the first person to suggest that Roberta may have been murdered.

Reuben Jephson

Jephson is Belknap's law partner. It is Jephson who comes up with the strategy the attorneys will use to defend Clyde. This complex and ultimately unsuccessful strategy is based on the premise that Clyde is too cowardly and inept to plan and carry out a murder. Jephson assures Clyde that he will be found innocent.

Orville W. Mason

Mason is the politically minded, self-serving district attorney who succeeds in getting a first-degree murder conviction in Clyde's case.

Reverend Duncan Mcmillan

McMillan is a good man who wants to save Clyde's soul but also contributes to his death. Clyde confides in McMillan that he intended to murder Roberta. McMillan later tells this to the governor, who, based on the information, refuses to commute Clyde's sentence. Clyde does not understand why McMillan did not lie for him, and McMillan feels some guilt over his role in Clyde's death.

Thomas Ratterer

Thomas is a bellhop at the Green-Davidson Hotel, along with Clyde. He eventually helps Clyde get a job at the Union League Club in Chicago, where Clyde runs into his wealthy uncle, Samuel.

Willard Sparser

Willard is a friend of Oscar Hegglund. He steals a car and, driving recklessly, hits and kills a girl. Clyde is a passenger in the car and runs from the scene along with the others to avoid taking responsibility for the death.