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Silas Lapham, a millionaire paint manufacturer in Boston. He is respected in business circles, but his family is not accepted socially. Garrulous, bourgeois, burly, and brusque, he reflects...
The Rise of Silas Lapham. PDF Cite Share. Helped along by pluck and luck, Silas Lapham has traveled the road from poor farmer to successful businessman. He has made his fortune by...
The Rise of Silas Lapham is a realist novel by William Dean Howells published in 1885. The story follows the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility.
- William Dean Howells, Don Lewis Cook
- 1885
Complete summary of William Dean Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of The Rise of Silas Lapham.
- Jack. The novel’s antagonist, one of the older boys stranded on the island. Jack becomes the leader of the hunters but longs for total power and becomes increasingly wild, barbaric, and cruel as the novel progresses.
- Simon. A shy, sensitive boy in the group. Simon, in some ways the only naturally “good” character on the island, behaves kindly toward the younger boys and is willing to work for the good of their community.
- Piggy. Ralph’s “lieutenant.” A whiny, intellectual boy, Piggy’s inventiveness frequently leads to innovation, such as the makeshift sundial that the boys use to tell time.
- Roger. Jack’s “lieutenant.” A sadistic, cruel older boy who brutalizes the littluns and eventually murders Piggy by rolling a boulder onto him. Read an in-depth analysis of Roger.
The novel recounts the moral dilemma of Colonel Silas Lapham, a newly wealthy, self-made businessman who has climbed over his former partner on the ladder to success. After Lapham moves from Vermont to Boston, his family befriends the Coreys, a Brahmin family in financial difficulties.
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Silas Lapham earns a fortune in the paint business through opportunism, greed, and driving ambition. He wants his daughter to marry into the aristocratic Corey family to gain the social prominence the backwoods Laphams have never attained.