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THE MAROON TIGER
Page 11
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CHAINS
By Theodore Dreiser. Boni & Liverwright, 1927, N. Y.
Chains is a group of lesser novels and stories. It
would hardly be worth the while of any one interested
in romance as such in the popular sense of the word, to
read this book. Only once does Dreiser tell a story
that could be read merely for entertainment.
This collection of stories and lesser novels is devoted
to the task of making vivid to us the operation and re
sults of certain psychological forces in society. As
Dreiser puts it: “The inevitabilities of our fate are:
Love and hope, fear and death, interwoven with our
lacks, inhibitions, jealousies and greed.”
With an astounding vividness, and accuracy of ob
servation he portrays the operation of these forces among
the poor, middle class and wealthy. He skips from Eng
land to America or to Arabia for his settings, with an
ease of expression that denotes no lack of familiarity.
It is far from my aim to attempt to attribute to Dreiser
any semblance of the greatness of Shakespeare, but on
the other hand, I rather think that like Shakespeare he
aims to give a composite picture of life. Unfortunate
ly, not being a Shakespeare his technique does not al
low his work to transcend a note of pessimism.
The peculiar fascination of Dreiser’s style is by no
means due to the fact that it is in any way unique or
novel, but that he is fervent in the development of causal
connections and relationships, and in tracing the ef
fect of some dominant emotions in an individual or in
dividuals he draws you into the web of his reason. Hav
ing once drawn you into that web he seems to take an
unimpassioned interest in the story himself but is mere
ly concerned with giving you a realistic picture of life
as it is. It is thus that he brings your own reason
into play, a fact which makes for keener interest. You
may be antagonistic toward his consistency in maneuver
ing his characters to unpleasant endings, but if he man
euvers them to their logical rather than devised end then
in our interpretation of him, we may lie safe in saying
he is realistic rather than pessimistic.
If you would like a delightful sociological tour, then
spend an evening reading Chains. You will he fas
cinated as he weaves you into the life of the slums of
London and depicts for you a story there. A story of
love, poverty and lack of opportunity. With equal in
terest he takes you into the home of the sophisticated
American rich, and points to the fact that the same fun
damental emotions motivate all life dominate there
and control the destiny of their fate. As if in an ef
fort to embrace as much territory as possible in the
glimpse of Arabia that he gives us, he points out that
even there they are not exempt.
Only once in this book does Dreiser become thor
oughly entertaining, and as if in apology for it he does
not represent himself as telling the tale. Either because
he wants us to contrast the life that we dream of, with
the life as it is, or because having dragged us through
so many realistic scenes, he does not wish that we think
him inconsistent, for writing one story of a happy life
and ending, he makes the story utterly impossible and
improbable, as if to say, “this is merely to amuse you;
life as I have shown you is not that way.”
Wallace Gooden, ’33.
GEORGIA NIGGER
Spivak, John, Brewer, 1932, N. Y.
Georgia, famous for its prize peaches and beautiful
women, now stands fair to gain widespread attention on
something not as pleasant—its rotten prison system.
The unsavoriness of Southern penal camps has long
been a fester in the sight of decent humanity; now, one
man has had the courage to devote painstaking efforts
in an investigation, the fruits of which are not words
alone, but actual photographs of the torture devices
used and the abominable places of confinement in all
their misery and sordidness.
The relations of the author are fictionized. However,
the story is of importance only in as it serves to vivify
the evils that Mr. Spivak wishes to bring out. The
story of David and his family’s struggle with Nature
and man for existence is an old and familiar one to
those who know the South — the agricultural South.
Share-cropping, a form of peonage, means subserv
ience and subjection to white planters though slavery
has been abolished. The chief means used to hold
black tenants to the soil, other than force and terror,
is to keep them in ever-increasing debt. The gradual
absorption of land owned by Negroes into the plan
tation holdings of the overlords is carried on by vari
ous and crooked legal practices, which are winked at
by the courts.
But to the main theme of Georgia Nigger. The white
man’s cotton must be picked and his roads must be
built. If a planter’s quota of cotton-pickers becomes
diminished, depleted by sickness or overwork, men must
be had, even if imprisonment of stray males must be
resorted to. These unfortunate men, taken on little
or no charges, are then leased out to the farms by the
county. Although there is a semblance of freedom the
workers move under the eyes of armed guards who
are not loath to shoot.
In the convict camps men, chained like beasts, work
the roads from sun up to sunset and return to spend
sleepless nights in a cage. Each must pass the warden
at the day’s end by whom he must be smelled in order
to give proof of having done sufficient labor.
The conditions of the camp that Mr. Spivak describes
are insufferably filthy and loathsome. Food is poor
and ill-prepared. Disease is rampant but medical at
tention is negligent. Flogging is prevalent and tortur
ing of offenders is a common practice. Sleeping quar
ters lack provisions for comfort or sanitation.
“Georgia,” says the author, “does not stand alone
as a state lost to fundamental justice and humanity. It
was chosen because it is fairly representative of the
Carolinas, Florida, Alabama—the whole of the far-
flung Black Belt. Nor is the whole South pictured
here. . . ” But the book is a severe indictment of Geor
gia, of the South, and of the whole United States that
in this twentieth century, conditions so characteristic
of the Medieval Ages can exist. It is to be hoped that
the effects springing from Mr. Spivak’s efforts will be
vigorous and constructive of the needed reforms.
James A. Hulbert, ’33.