Complex sentence: The son of a successful mid-western farmer and an intensely pious mother, thus guaranteed a comfortable livelihood, Claude Wheeler nonetheless views himself as a victim of his father's success and his own inexplicable malaise.
Split into simpler sentences: The son of a successful Midwestern farmer and an intensely pious mother, he is guaranteed a comfortable livelihood. Nevertheless, Wheeler views himself as a victim of his father's success and his own inexplicable malaise.