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The Titan (novel)

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Language
  
English

Publication date
  
1914

Author
  
Theodore Dreiser

Followed by
  
The Stoic

4.3/5
Goodreads

Country
  
United States

Series
  
A Trilogy of Desire

Originally published
  
1914

Preceded by
  
The Financier

Publisher
  
John Lane

The Titan (novel) t2gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcRhtY5bX7xIrQXBwZ

Media type
  
Print (hardback & paperback)

Genres
  
Inspirational Fiction, Economics, Fiction, Novel, Business, Speculative fiction

Similar
  
Works by Theodore Dreiser, Novels, Classical Studies books

The Titan is a novel written by Theodore Dreiser in 1914. It is Dreiser's sequel to The Financier.

Contents

Plot summary

Sometime after being released from prison, Frank invests in stocks subsequent to the Panic of 1873, and becomes a millionaire again. He decides to move out of Philadelphia and start a new life in the West. He moves to Chicago with Aileen and his attorney is finally able to persuade Lillian to agree to a divorce. Frank decides to take over the street-railway system. He bankrupts several opponents with the help of John J. McKenty and other political allies. Meanwhile, Chicago society finds out about his past in Philadelphia and the couple are no longer invited to dinner parties; after a while, the press turns on him too. Cowperwood is unfaithful many times. Aileen finds out about a certain Rita and beats her up. She gives up on him and has an affair with Polk Lynde, a man of privilege; she eventually loses faith in him. Meanwhile, Cowperwood meets young Berenice Fleming; by the end of the novel, he tells her he loves her and she consents to live with him. However, the ending is bittersweet as Cowperwood has not managed to obtain the fifty-year franchise for his railway schemes that he wanted.

Allusions to other works

  • Allusions to other works include Ishmael, Caesar, Euripides, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Milton's Masque of Comus, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, Molière's Les Femmes Savantes, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, Sophocles's Electra, Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book, John Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes, and Cellini's autobiography.
  • Cowperwood collects paintings; some painters mentioned include Lord Leighton, Gabriel Rossetti, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Henry Raeburn, Jean-François Millet, Jan Steen, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, and Jean-Léon Gérôme.
  • In Chapter XXIX, Florence Cochrane is said to read Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson.
  • In Chapter LI, Braxmar says he has read George du Maurier's Trilby.
  • Music is mentioned with Sarah Bernhardt, Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, and Puccini.
  • Greek mythology is also mentioned with Chaldea, Circe, Helen, Troy, and Andromache.
  • Allusions to actual history

  • Historical allusions include Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, the Haymarket affair, Henry George, and Robert Owen.
  • References

    The Titan (novel) Wikipedia