Marital Quality in Financial Anxiety: A Critical View of Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier

Abstract

This article is an attempt to explore the extreme love for money that disturbs the feelings and emotional attachments of the protagonist in Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier. The desire of Frank Cowperwood for materialistic objects without aesthetic sense covers the whole events of the plot. The violation of religious values, social ethics and norms to become part of the upper class. He always remained busy in money making and business and several times changed houses to well-furnished and decorated houses to show his family a very prosperous and upper-class family. He shifted his family because he did not feel easy with those who were financially weak; they considered themselves as members of the upper class. Frank Cowperwood sacrificed relations; he married Lillian for money, but later on, he got interested in Aileen for money and sacrificed relations with Lillian for Aileen and Money. The whole novel is revolved around the concept of materialism. Values are ignored, Relationships are sacrificed, and the weak position of religion is only to gain financial success. Frank Cowperwood gained financial power, though he violated all social and religious values. The qualitative approach is applied in textual analysis with a Marxist lens for an oriented conclusion. This research is beneficial for literary people to explore the new dimensions of literary pieces.