The Dream of Success

English critic Kenneth S. Lynn '47 writes with such a fluid style, it does not seem surprising that he accumulated the unusual total of three Bowdoin Prizes while completing the manuscript for The Dream of Success. But it would seem on first glance that he has wasted his ability on a collection of early twentieth century writers who are rapidly becoming obscure. Of his five novelists, only Jack London and Theodore Dreiser have achieved any sort of place in literature, while the following of David Graham Phillips, Frank Norris, and Robert Herrick is meagre at best.

Yet Lynn has clearly made a shrewd choice in selection of subject matter. Instead of criticizing literary style alone, he has written a work filled with perceptive sociological insights into turn-of-the-century American society. Using the well-known Horatio Alger story as a touchstone common to five novelists, Lynn has traced the impact of the success myth upon each artist and has indirectly produced a profound commentory on the fiercely competitive Big Business era. The summarization of an age through its literature is dangerous history; but here it proves very effective. Through skillful blending of the novelists own beliefs, ambitions, and fears, with their plot structures, Lynn builds a broadening picture of a society which has its attitudes toward sex, marriage, religion, politics, and of course, economics, dominated by the necessity to succeed.

Taking sharp exception with Van Wyck Brooks, V. L. Parrington and the New Deal critics led by Henry Steel Commager, the author contends, contrary to these critics, that early twentieth century novelists did pay homage to the myth often in spite of themselves.

"Far from scorning the bitch goddess, (the five writers) grew up on the success myth and in their maturity accepted it as the key to the meaning of American life. The society which was portrayed in their society was not one which was split into two warring camps, or what you will, but a society which, as William James has said, exclusively worshipped a common deity, which was locked in the struggle to get ahead, not separated between opposing ideals."

A neurotic, sickly, Harvard man, Robert Herrick is typical in his inability to escape the myth. Although he consciously sought to replace Alger with an alternative that would prove an equally compelling vision, he could not succeed. His answer was the Professional Man; he wanted his hero to renounce all ease and luxury, to define success in terms of his job rather than his salary. But as Lynn observes, Herrick wrote a series of fiascos because his Professional Men could not avoid, even in their north woods hideouts, striving to become Alger heroes.

With London and Dreiser, particularly, Lynn has developed a previously unexpressed thesis. He has done so in a convincing fashion through close analysis of each novelist's lives and works. His own work thus proves increasingly effective because he chose "uncharacteristic" men with which to deal.

More than one reader will undoubtedly question the extent to which he has applied his thesis to the early twentieth century class. His implications are perhaps too broad. Yet even for those who dissent, Lynn's insights into an age should make his work profitable reading for any student of American social history.