"Typhoon"

Paper Summary:

This paper provides a brief analysis of Dreiser's story. It explains that there are three major conflicts in the story: The conflict between Ida and her father, the conflict between Ida and Ed and the conflict between Ida's actions and what she believes to be right. These conflicts are analyzed for their impact on the story.

From the Paper:

"Ida's father is strict and stern in the worst way. By insisting that she obey his every command, he prevents her from growing as a person, leaving her vulnerable to the lines and tricks that Ed uses on her, tricks that most girls her age could have seen through in a second. But in order to protect Ida from the perils of the modern-world, Mr. Zobel instills in her "repression, even fear at times, which in the course of years took on an aspect of careful courtesy supplemented by accurate obedience". But this repression has unfortunate consequences: when his own daughter is in despair, pregnant and abandoned by her lover, she doesn't feel that she can confess the truth to her father. She decided to kill herself, rather than face her father's reaction to what has happened. Parents are supposed to instill trust in their children, but Mr. Zobel has seen fit to instill nothing more than blind obedience in his daughter Ida. And when she disobeys what he was told her to do, when she realizes that she has committed a kind of crime, in her father's eyes, with Ed, then she sees no other option than to kill both Ed and herself."

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