McTeague
Frank Norris's novel McTeague explores the decay of society in the early twentieth century. Set in San Francisco, "a place where anything can happen...where fact is often stranger than fiction" (McElrath, Jr. 447), Norris explores themes of greed and naturalism, revealing the darker side of human psyche. What can be found most disturbing is the way that Norris portrays McTeague, in shocking detail, as nothing more than a brute animal at his core. Norris explores the greed and savage animalism that lurks inside McTeague. McTeague is first portrayed as a gentle giant. The reader is introduced to McTeague as he sits in his dental parlor, smoking his cigar and drinking his steam beer. He is described as a tall, slowly moving man. McTeague's mind was as his body, heavy, slow to act, sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about the man. Altogether he suggested the draft horse, immensely strong, stupid, docile, obedient (Norris 7). Immediately one can visualize McTeague, a large lumbering mass, going about his daily activities in quiet solitude. The dental practice that McTeague runs provides him with a sound income, and in the first few chapters of the novel, he desires nothing more out of
Norris develops the novel in a way that takes the reader through the mind of McTeague. The final effect is one of chilling realism. McTeague develops a greed and brute quality that can be realized in all of us. Norris magnifies the deconstructive traits that lurk inside of society and all of us and shows them too us, if we dare to look for them. In this last scene, McTeague is left to die in the brutal conditions of Death Valley, a force that his primitiveness and greed cannot escape. After Trina and McTeague plan to be wed, she wins the lottery providing a catalyst for the further decay of their character. After winning the five thousand dollars, the "passport to doom that brings on all the trouble," she begins to hoard the money and become stingy (Rexroth 345). "I don' know," answered McTeague in great distress. "I don' want anything to-to come between us, Mark."...
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Approximate Word count = 1552
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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