Alicita Rodriguez’s “Architecture and Structure in Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler: The Tale of An American Dreamer” presents a compelling argument of Martin Dressler as a fantastic novel. With evidence from both the novel itself and outside sources, Rodriguez supports her cause and evokes many questions in the reader. Her article extensively examines the juxtaposition of reality and fantasy within Martin Dressler: The Tale of An American Dreamer.
This article’s primary thesis is that Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer achieves the fantastic through its use of troubling architecture. Millhauser alternates between the dream world and the real world throughout the novel, eventually transforming reality into nothing more than…show more content… If each hotel is a world within itself, what is the world outside? By the end of the novel, Martin Dressler is unable to answer this question himself because the environment within his hotels has become his reality. The Dressler, the New Dressler, and the Grand Cosmo create an entirely new realm for Martin to exist in. However, this was Martin’s goal in creating the hotels, for he wanted to provide the residents everything they could possibly need under a single roof. While living in the Grand Cosmo, Martin never leaves, for he has no reason to and he is attached to his creations. Rodriguez supports this idea of the hotels being separate realms with both descriptions of the hotels themselves and the reviews about them. She highlights the multiple unique living areas of the Grand Cosmo, which entirely eliminate consistency within the building. These overdone aspects of the Grand Cosmo, like those in Martin’s other hotels, make it “everything but a hotel” (Rollo 261). The lack of order within these vast structures goes against the typical uniformity of modern architecture, as told by Katherine Shonfield in her article “The Use
