Introduction:
"The Rise of Silas Lapham" is a realistic novel written by William Dean Howells in 1885 about the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter's marriage into the aristocratic Corey family. Silas's morality does not fail him. He loses his money but makes the right moral decision when his partner proposes the unethical selling of the mills to English settlers. Besides, Howells is known to be the father of American realism, and a denouncer of the sentimental novel. The love triangle of Irene Lapham, Tom Corey, and Penelope Lapham highlights Howells' views of sentimental novels as unrealistic and deceitful. (from Wikipedia)
Plot Summary:
Bartley Hubbard has come to Silas Lapham's office to interview him for the "Solid Men of Boston" series in the Boston Events newspaper. Hubbard tells Silas, a nineteenth-century millionaire, that he wants his money or his life. "I guess you wouldn't want my life without the money," Lapham replies.
"Take 'em both," Bartley suggests.
Born on a northern Vermont farm near the Canadian border in 1820, Lapham was the son of poor and unpretentious, religious parents possessing sterling morality. Lapham, however, admired his mother more when she knelt before him at night washing his feet than when she knelt at prayer.
In 1835, his father discovered mineral paint on their farm in a pit left by an uprooted tree. Because of poverty, buildings were not being painted at that time. It was not until 1855, after his brothers had left the farm and Silas had returned from a three-month stay in Texas to operate a nearby tavern-stand, that he decided to mine and sell the paint. He married a schoolteacher, Persis, and together they built a fortune in paint that withstood sun and rain, not fading, chipping, or scaling.
Lapham shows his storeroom of paint, which is stocked in many sizes and colors. He shows Hubbard his first-rate paint, the Persis Brand. He continues to tell him of the advertisement for his paint on board fences, barns, and even large rocks, arguing that he does not understand why people object to this altering of the landscape. "I say the landscape was made for the man, and not the man for the landscape."
Lapham tells Hubbard that he did not have any influence in the government during the Civil War so he could not speculate by selling his paint for war supplies. Instead, at the insistence of his wife, he fought and returned a colonel. When he returned, he rushed the paint during the postwar boom with the help of a partner, who had the capital to back him. "He didn't know anything about paint," Lapham says. Silas bought his partner out in two years.
Leaving Lapham's office, Hubbard notices his attractive typist. "What an uncommonly pretty girl!" Hubbard comments.
"She does her work," Lapham replies.
Hubbard is given a ride back to the Events office in Lapham's buggy and learns of Silas' love for a fast horse. Writing a subtly cutting account of Lapham, Hubbard uses a tone that Silas will never detect. (all from Cliffnotes)
Analysis:
After John Winthrop, Benjamin Franklin put "life with temperance" into the morals criteria for pursuing American dream. In his own autobiography, he describes that through learning, working hard and care about social affairs, anyone would have the chance to be successful. His ideas became the model for numerous Americans to follow at that time. Besides Bejamin Franklin's ideas, Horatio Alger's literary series also stimulate American young men to pursue American dream with moralities. And so does William Dean Howells' "The Rise of Silas Lapham", all these literary pieces convey that the realization of American dream should be supported with moralities instead of pursuing just fortune and wealth.
Reference: 1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Silas_Lapham
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