Castigating Corruption in the American Political Space: A Study of Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier and The Titan

The American political space depicted in Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier
and The Titan presents a clear picture of the antagonism that prevailed
in the United States between capitalism and socialism in the first half of
the 20th century. We set out in this paper to portray how Dreiser
problematizes corruption in American politics and how this challenge is
addressed. This study is significant in that corruption is still endemic in
American politics, and the reforms suggested in Dreiser’s novels under
study are still relevant today as far as the democratization process in the
United States of America and the world is concerned. This study is based
on the hypothesis that the 20th century American political space
portrayed in Dreiser’s The Financier and The Titan is plagued by
corruption. The Marxist theoretical approach was considered suitable for
our analyses in this study. The major finding of this study borders around
Dreiser’s commitment in the two novels to castigate the alarming rate of
corruption that has destroyed party politics in the United States of
America. One also finds out that Theodore Dreiser fully endorses Karl
Marx’s vision of a classless society as an ideal system that can eliminate
the inequalities that prevail in the capitalist space. According to him,
such a classless society can go a long way to reduce (to the barest
minimum), corruption in American politics.

Keywords: Castigate, politics, corruption, capitalism, socialism