An American Tragedy - Dreiser, a literary analysis research paper

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Dear members of the forum, please excuse me if this thread is posted in the wrong forum. Well now, I am currently a college student and I am facing great adversary in composing a literary analysis research paper on Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.

Now, I have read An American Tragedy and have also read a few online summaries. (For example cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides4/Dreiser.html or some sort of cliff-notes-like study aid). For example, I've found a few potential themes that seemed to repeat themselves over and over again in different sources: naturalism, religion, the american dream as an illusion, the creation of a fictional story from a real-life trial, the concept of illegitimacy. I'm sure there are dozens more.

Next, I tried to formulate a thesis statement based on the text. For example, consider this: "To what extent is Clyde Griffiths the victim of environmental, social, and economic forces? To what extent is he the victim of choices he makes with his own free will? " Then I could write some sort of thesis statement like "Dreiser's use of color reinforced his naturalistic philosophical assertion that Griffiths is a victim of external forces." (I'm just making up that thesis statement - it probably makes no sense, but you get my drift.)

However, my main dilemna is that my professor wants journals (essays) written by other students to be a part of my own paper, as this paper is basically supposed to be a mega literary criticism piece compiled of from various sources. I'm not asked to write my own thoughts and opinions of the novel but instead to recount on the opinions from various lit crit sources.

So please if you have read the novel, your help will be greatly appreciated!

Please, any feedback will be greatly appreciated. I am looking for essays written by fellow students to cite as sources and help me continue my own paper.

facing great adversity in composing ... ("Adversary" means opponent).

...mega literary criticism piece, that is a cool way of putting it! Well, it sounds like you need to compile a list of essays that have been written about it. How har is that? ith the Internet at your disposal, you can type in the name of the work and the word "essay" or "critique" or "review" and you will get a lot of articles about it.

One by one write a paragraph for each paper you include and then go add each to the reference list at the end. EASY! It's a matter of identifying their thesis statements. Here is a start:

library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/dreiser/tdcr.html

It is hard to compile essay when all the sources are books that are located no where near my location!

Does your school give you access to a library database? If not, I recommend Questia, but it is a paid subscription. I also recommend Google Scholar and findarticles.com

Google Books is good too. Many of the books have limited previews that will give you more than enough to cite from. In the cases of critical anthologies, you can often read whole essays on the topic you are interested in.