Martin Dressler: A Tale of American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser - Research Paper Example

Martin Dressler: A tale of American Dreamer By Steven Millhauser Contents. Life and Works Literary Criticism _Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dream. My Critical Analysis Steven Steven Millhouser is one of the most excellent American novelists and short story writer of the time. He was born on 3 rd August 1943 in New York. He spent his childhood in Connecticut where e his father was an English Professor at the University of Bridgeport. After completing his B A from Columbia University, he continued in the Brow University to take doctorate in English. He received Pulitzer Prize for his novel “Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dream”. His debut to the world of literature was by the famous novel’ Edwin Mullhose: The life and Death of an American writer’ which was acclaimed by ‘Times’ and ‘News Week’. It dealt with the story of the narrators friend who had died shortly after completing his master piece ‘Cartoon’. Through Edwin’s Life Steven clearly writes about the middle class childhood life of that time. This work is considered as the imitation of Vladimir’s Novokoves ‘Pale Fire’. Next came his second novel “Portrait of a Romantic’ in 1977 and his collection of short stories’ In the Penny Arcade’ in 1986. From the realm of Morpheus, a collection of short story was published in 1986. He often treated the theme of fantasy like that of Poe in his stories. His other later writing\s include ‘In the Penny Arcade’, ‘The Barren Museum’ and ‘The little kingdom’. The novella ‘Enchanted Night’ which was published as a book in 1999 is the story takes place in Connecticut. The story is an examination of reality and dreaming of a group of people belong to that place. He never gives importance to what happens to his characters what will they do. The visionary quality of these stories is excellent. We feel that he does not write for us but speaks to us through his stories. Through his fiction Steven explicates his childhood experiences by recreating some of them with fantasy and magic effort. It is to be noted that Millhauser penned ‘Edwin Mullhouse’ at the age of twenty and the artistic thoughts are conveyed through the eyes of a child. Martin Dressler is also a story of a boy who is having big ideas which are brought into reality. The author’s great appreciation to the myth of American Dream is brought here. The tangling relationship of technology, advertising etc in the common life 19 th century is clearly depicted in this work. ‘Martin Dressler : The Tale of an American Dream’ is the story of Martin , a poor boy of twelve years assisting his father in a tobacco shop , but lulling a high dream of a pure American. He is a ideal representative of 19 th century New York city .Just as the place itself he is restless both eternally and physically. Instead of having less comfort and convenience what makes him differ from others are his imaginings about his life. He was not agreeable to confine to his limitations .But he submit himself to the arduous mission of becoming victorious person in future. He had a humble beginning at the age of fourteen as a hotel boy in “Vander line Hotels” in addition to his assistance in his own tobacco shop. Because of his promising career there, he was raised up to the level of a clerk and then to the personal secretary to the manager. Still he is not willing to work for some other person until he is self-reliant. The writer says “What seized his innermost attention, what held him there day after day in noon reverie was the sense of a great, elaborate structure, a system of order, a well planned machine that drew all these people to it and carried them up and down in iron cages and arranged them in private rooms”. With help of the engineer of that hotels Martin open a lunchroom that becomes popular within short period. He has to make more rooms for the customers. Still there is something in his mind to fulfill. Some times the readers feel that Martin is a dreamer only, who is never contented with what he has. His mind is empty now. What he nurtures is a horizon. The search for ‘something else’ continues. Thus Martin turns to be restless business man. The restlessness follows in his personal life also. When he grows to the heights slowly we can note that his personal life is also altering.. The next diverging point in his life is the influence of a mother and her three daughters. He weds the eldest one, Caroline, only a beauty who can do nothing for her highly ambitious husband. Now her sister Emmeline starts working for him as a cashier. The relation is stronger as a husband-wife relation that supports all the strong aspects of a determined husband. It can be said a platonic love. Meanwhile his relation to his wife slowly deteriorates. In the midst of that he buys the old-fashioned ‘Vanderlin Hotels’. Later he builds ‘Dressler Hotel’ which is more modern in design and features. While Martin builds more impressive 18 story ‘New Dressler Hotel ‘ the reader’s feel that Martin is after daydreams not reality. We are forced to think that structure has a place in this novel and visions are part of his personality. Where lies Martin’s personal life is also a matter to be discussed. One night, out of jealousy, Caroline expresses some psychological disorders by shooting at her sister, but fails in the attempt. Martin is a prey to his forces of desire. It cannot be controlled or misdirected. This is evident from his fulfilling the vision of ‘Grand Cosmo’ a thirty story hotel with all the facilities one needs to live and never have to go out any where, which is a new world inside this world. Thus while Emmeline spends time with her distressed sister, Martin Dressler lacks her charisma and support. With the help of his Austrian born creative designer, Rudolf Arling , his utmost dream comes into being.’ Grand Cosmo’. “The Grand Cosmo was not a tourist attraction or a hotel for transients, but a world within the world, rivaling the world, and whoever entered its wall had no further need of the other world”. It can be said as an idea set by Martin or an art form a trade imagination. Grand Cosmo was a success. Was the life of the creator of ‘Grand Cosmo’ a success? We are enforced to think that Dressler could have dreamt much more meaningfully. ‘What next?’ is the question that may arise in the mind of Dressler after achieving his dream. If we have an aim in our life, we should be contented when it is satisfied. The value of his hardships is achieved in the case of Martin. But what leads him in his life is the American Dream of success through out his life. Janet Burroway writes “Dressler coolly explores this American dream in all its manifestation as aim, vision, intention, nightmare, hallucination, delusion, death. the great city—and extension America, with its evermore exotic immigrants, its evermore hyperbolic advertising ,its voracious ambition, its headlong rush into the 2oth century ‘a fever patient in a hospital, thrashing in its sleeps, erupting in modern dreams “ The story starts like a fairy tale.’ There once lived a man named Martin Dressler, a shopkeeper’s son, who rose from modest beginnings to a height of dream like good fortune”. This implies that the story is myth, a pure Americas myth. We can consider the play as personification of the American dream of success, a personification of the failure of success myth. Success is a requirement with which Americans makes life, because it seems magical and inexplicable. The Americans considers it as owed to every free citizen. This success dream has its roots in the 17th century England. But the great decline in 1930 s shows it as bitch Goddess. This is evident when we see the Grand Cosmo remains there without customers. Steven Millhauser successfully brings out the worthlessness of American Dream in this novel. The novelist is a great success in portraying vision. His descriptive power is incomparable and delighting. Diana Postlethwaite describes the facility of the hotels as “amalgam of hotels, museum, department store……--twenty three levels underground, thirty above…”. His great descriptive powers are also vivid through the description of Martin’s visit to brothels. In his words it was a world of top hated swells and tough in refer jackets, of brazen eyed women standing in doorways of saw dust smells through swinging saloon mingling with the tang of horse dung thrown up by chattering wheel and iron shod hooves….”. The literary techniques used by the writer also should be mentioned. He uses variety of techniques to create confusion and obscurity. Why a person like Martin proposes to a common sleepy beauty is also not understandable. In all the efforts he was winner except in the case of his personal life. It can only be explained in relation to his childhood life. Millhauser is not giving his hero a memorable childhood. What he lacks in his life is the malleable relation during child hood which moulds the character of a child. He has no pain in the pitiable condition of the ‘Grand Cosmo’ There also he tries to be happy by allowing others to spent there as customers. . The novel starts from sour reality and slowly progress towards unreal situations. At first we meet a mundane character Martin, who helps his father in a cigar shop. But later we are imposed to think that he has some psychological disorders, or untamed thoughts and efforts made him so. At the early stage he was a striking person because of his competence. The journey from reality and possibility to imagination impossibility is a striking experience. Thus this thrilling novel brings us face to face with the darker aspects of the American dream and it shows the very fact that the stake of American culture is dream . By drawing such a powerful character, Steven Millhauser intensifies the situation of the then America with full of vision and invention. The gift of the character Martin is his power to make the potential come true and unsatisfactory with the result. He is a man who succeeds in everything at one side but having an empty heart at the end. Work Cited http://www.accssmylibrary.com http://www.thefreelibrary.com Millhauser, Steven Martin Dressler: The tale of an American Dreamer. London: Phoenix, 1996 Janet Burroway, New York Times Book Review, 5/12/19 http://www.nytimes.com Read More