In the times of American transformation, Dreiser observed the sudden rise of great financial barons. The conservative mercantilism changed to the period of finance capital. Dreiser exposed the misdirected American energy and his trilogy of novels revealed a new materialistic aspect of the American Dream. Money, art, and glory including women were shown to dominate average American life in cities. Greed turned humans into predators and survival in society was based on their predatory skills. The trilogy that included The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic actually revealed the enterprising business orientations of average Americans. These novels connected the American capitalism that spread in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Here Dreiser was inspired by the life of a Philadelphia tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes and replicated a fictional character Frank Algernon Cowperwood who reflected contemporary American life. American social fabric showed a drastic change from the middle of the nineteenth century up to the end of the civil war. Industrialization of America was on the horizon and necessary infrastructure including canals and railways were being planned to link all the regions of America thereby connecting them to nodal centers of growth like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. Several opportunities opened up and enterprising people including many manipulators rose from rags to riches in this newly evolving world order. Average Americans became more greedy and rapid colonization of western lands was in progress. In the late nineteenth century, Dreiser put his observations about American capitalism in the form of three connecting novels that made a trilogy. Cowperwood was an over-ambitious businessman and his life was wrecked by the financial crisis of 1873. This was described by Dreiser in The Financier which was his first novel of the trilogy. In The Titan, which was his second novel of the trilogy, Dreiser continues to elaborate on the life of Cowperwood who now left the prison and goes to Chicago to salvage his fortune but had to suffer due to his past. Later Cowperwood moves to London and tries his fortunes in a new underground railway system. So, American capitalism was well described by Dreiser in his Trilogy of Desire.

Keywords: American transformation, Trilogy, American Dream, American life, American Capitalism, Trilogy of Desire.