Democracy, an American Novel (Henry

Democracy, an American Novel (Henry Adams)

Democracy, an American Novel

Henry Adams was the son of a well-known congressman (Charles Francis Adams), a teacher at Harvard University, and he was also a journalist, travel writer, editor and he wrote novels, the best known being the Education of Henry Adams: A Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity. He received a Pulitzer Prize in 1919 for the Education of Henry Adams, posthumously. His historical writings about Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were respected; other works he wrote, including the Education of Henry Adams, were considered satirical and used irony and humor to critique the system of education that he thought had failed his generation and not prepared his generation for the industrial revolution.

Adams' book Democracy, an American Novel, takes place in Washington, D.C., in the 1870s, during the highly emotional period after the Civil War. Adams originally published the book (1880) anonymously, and in it he creates a corrupt character named Senator Silas P. Ratcliffe, who is apparently patterned after a then senator James G. Blaine. The book shows Adams' skepticism about politics in the United States, and he points out in the book the serious national problems being handled by politicians pretending to know what they are doing. It did not get rave reviews when it came out (later it was appreciated more fully though) but reading it in 2007 is a wonderful look at what drove politicians then, and still motivates and influences their behavior today. Corruption in politics is always around, from one generation to the next, and throughout American history.

A really appreciated the clever and creative way that Adams used a woman, Madeleine Lee, a widow, as an important character in the book. Madeleine came to Washington from Germany, and she seems to want to learn as much about politics as she can. She seems also to want what everybody always wants when the come to Washington D.C., and that is power. (in his book, Adams likes to use all capital letters for the word POWER.) I like the way in this book that Adams is not lecturing to the reader, but showing the reader through Madeleine about how corrupt and cynical the political system is in Washington D.C. (and probably in many if not most cities where politics is the main item on the menu). When Madeleine finds out that the two men hitting on her (Ratcliffe, from the western U.S. And Carrington, a southerner) are not really truly patriotic and idealistic, but more practical and conniving, she begins to learn first hand some important lessons about democracy and politics.

Madeleine is a character that seems to be trying to put some honesty and old-fashioned feminine good sense into a city that is all about POWER. But she is up against a task and a problem that no single person can ever defeat. Still, any little bit of information about people and POWER in Washington D.C. makes a story more interesting. What happened to people with POWER in the novel also happens to men and women in the nation's capital in 2007 - they become dishonest, corrupt, or at least in some ways phony compared to real people in the heartland of America. That is the moral lesson of this novel, and it is an important lesson for those readers who care about their country today.

For example, in the scene in the book where Madeleine is attending a White House reception and she found herself "...before two seemingly mechanical figures, which might be wood or wax, for any sign they showed of life" (Adams 86). Actually, those two people (figures) turned out to be the president of the United States and his wife. They stood "stiff and awkward by the door" and their faces were "stripped of every sign of intelligence." When they shook hands with visitors at the reception, they used "...the mechanical action of toy dolls" (86). Madeleine said to Mr. French, who was accompanying her, "I had no conception how shocking it was!" To witness such phony, mechanical people going through mindless motions.

On page 87, Adams explains to the readers that besides Madeleine, there was not one person "...who felt the mockery of this exhibition." Everyone else thought the reception ("...the deadly dullness") was "natural and proper" but to Madeleine is was more like "a nightmare," or the twisted vision an opium addict might see. She felt a "sudden conviction" that this boring, mechanical scene represented "the end of American society." think this was Adams' way of showing his distaste for politics and for the way important powerful people go about their lives. Adams' father, after all, was a congressman and so Adams knew what the routine was like in the halls of Congress and the White House. I also think that Adams' book was showing the difference between men and women; men were (and still are) into power, business, politics and money. Women - at least the idealized version of women - were more into culture, the arts, charity work, duty to family and intimate friendships. But in this book, it seems that Madeleine, although she doesn't really accept the way that Senator Ratcliffe believes and behaves, needs Ratcliffe to be able to have her own access to POWER. In a way then, she is no better than the rest of the stiff, mechanical people she detests.