McTeague As A Social Commentary Essay, Research Paper
Written in 1899, Frank Norris? novel, McTeague serves as a position of social cabals of his clip period. Norris illustrates the stratification of society in this San Francisco community by utilizing the construct of Social Darwinism. He gives elaborate histories of the interior workings of society along with the emotions of the clip. Through his characters, Norris shows the separation of categories and the greed that grew copiously during the late nineteenth century. He besides gives a inexorable image of endurance in his word picture of the theory of natural choice.
In the first chapter, Norris paints a image of a town scene. He describes Polk Street as
? one of those transverse streets peculiar to Western metropoliss, situated in the bosom of the abode one-fourth, but occupied by little trades people who lived in the suites above their stores. There were corner drug shops with immense jars of ruddy, xanthous and green liquids in their Windowss, really courageous and homosexual ; stationers? shops, where illustrated weeklies were tacked upon bulletin boards ; barber stores with cigar bases in their anterooms ; sad-looking pipe fitters ; offices ; inexpensive eating houses, in whose Windowss one saw hemorrhoids of unopened oysters weighted down by regular hexahedrons of ice, and China hogs and cattles knee deep in beds of white beans. ?
In this paragraph, the reader gets a ocular image of a town during the nineteenth century. Cozy, quaint and instead hapless, this town exists as an illustration of any other town at this clip. Besides, in puting the activities of the clip period, Norris describes the forenoon rite on Polk Street to expose the stratification of the categories. He writes:
? The labourers went sloging yesteryear in a sprawling file- pipe fitter? s learners, their pockets stuffed with subdivisions of lead pipe, pincers, and plyerss ; carpenters, transporting nil but their small pasteboard tiffin baskets painted to copy leather ; packs of street workers, their overalls soiled with xanthous clay, their choices and pole-handled shovels over their shoulders? A small subsequently following in the way of the twenty-four hours labourers came the clerks and store misss, dressed with a certain inexpensive smarting? towards eleven o? time the ladies from the great avenue a block above Polk Street made their visual aspect, parading the pavements at leisure, intentionally? ?
Here the reader can see apparent as twenty-four hours the separation of the categories of this clip period. These people
are separated by their business, which besides determines their activity on Polk Street. In detecting this activity, one can see the distinguishable lines drawn between the workers and the wealthy.
Besides, in this narrative of greed and misrepresentation told, the reader can see the underlying greed of the on the job category. The characters of Maria Macapa and Zerkow ooze greed from every pore. At the beginning of the novel, Maria can be found traveling through the renter? s flats for? debris? to turn in to Zerkow for payment. Once at that place, she delights in stating the narrative of her household? s former luck concentrating on a gold home base, for which Zerkow drools over the mere idea of. It is in this scene that the reader besides learns of the compulsion with gold that overtakes these two. In the description of their infatuations with money and objects, the reader gets a clear image of both the despair of the clip and its development into greed.
In the development and flood tide of this novel, the reader sees a word picture Darwin? s theory of natural choice to attach to the Social Darwinism that is shown at the beginning in the description of the town departers. As the narrative concludes, the societal interaction of the characters breaks down into force and decease. First, Zerkow killed Maria and himself. Then McTeague putting to deaths Trina. Finally, Marcus tracks down McTeague in the desert and they both die as McTeague kills Marcus and so he himself dies. It can be determined that this form is based on a kind of natural choice. Therefore, the endurance of the fittest is illustrated, where the strong survive and of the weak we dispose. In this instance, the strong survive longer than the weak, but in the terminal they are all dead.
Within this fresh lives a elaborate history of life in the late nineteenth century, intertwined with a narrative of greed and misrepresentation. Class constructions are outlined and the societal and economical patterns are illustrated. However, the most affecting image painted is one of animalism. The characters in the novel are driven by money and power, another subject that the reader may tie in with the people of this period. Confucius said, ? A gentleman has three things to guard against. In the yearss of thy young person, ere thy strength is steady, beware of lecherousness. When manhood is reached, in the comprehensiveness of strength, beware of discord. In old age, when thy strength is broken, beware of greed. ? Possibly these would hold been good words of advice for McTeague and his friends.
