Analysis

Clyde manages to make a fresh start, but his position in Lycurgus is an unusual one. He is both connected and not connected to his wealthy uncle and cousins. He is a Griffiths, and as such is treated with some respect by the employees of the factory, but he is not part of the rich Griffiths’ world in Lycurgus. He lives in one room in a boardinghouse and has the most menial of jobs in the factory. He is still naï ve about wealth and position, and what that means for a person. He thinks for example that just because Gilbert Griffiths is in a senior position in the company he must be able to arrive late and leave early. He thinks being wealthy is all about fun and enjoyment, a kind of paradisal world. He still looks on from the outside and dreams, as for example, when he first sees the Griffiths’ house: “Indeed in his immature and psychically unilluminated mind it suddenly evoked a mood which was of roses, perfumes, lights and music. The beauty! The ease! ” (chapter V). He is bitterly aware of the contrast between this branch of the family and the poverty and squalor of his own. What he does not yet realize is the rigidity of the class structure he has stumbled upon in Lycurgus. It is a hierarchical world. Samuel and Gilbert Griffiths believe firmly in the class structure: “One had to have castes” (chapter IV). Old wealth (the Griffiths) looks down on more recent wealth (the Finchleys and the Cranstons); and in the factory, employees such as Whiggam and Kemerer show excessive deference to Gilbert Griffiths simply because he is the son of the owner. Clyde will soon find out that his status as the poor cousin will exclude him from the society he longs to be a part of. Clyde’s position is therefore an anomalous one and difficult for him to manage.

Analysis Book 2, Chapters 1-6
Clyde continues his very slow upward climb. He acquits himself well in social situations and people tend to like him. Girls find him attractive and intelligent, and he has a sensitivity that his cousin, the self-willed Gilbert, lacks. Clyde’s relentless, compulsive desire to raise his social status continues. He regards the Griffiths’ world as the ultimate to which he can aspire. As class conscious as any of the other characters, he is ready to ditch his relationships with Dillard and Rita because he thinks they are beneath his level, and this is his opinion too of the other residents of the boarding house. He is, after all, a Griffith, and should be cut out for higher things. (He does not seem to realize that he is treating Dillard in exactly the same way that he thinks the Griffiths are treating him.) But for the time being Clyde has to continue in this strange limbo, hanging on to a respected name but unable to participate in all the riches and enjoyments that he thinks that name should entitle him to. And lurking in his past is the shame of his early years of poverty and deprivation. He cannot shake off the memory of it, which influences how he thinks about everything. He is envious, for example, of the power he believes that Gilbert must possess. If only he, Clyde, could possess similar power, he would be able to exorcize the ghost of his Kansas City past. Clyde also lacks self-discipline when it comes to his relationships with women. He gets carried away by his emotions as well as his sexual desires, as the next chapters will reveal.