As befits a classic naturalistic novel, the story told in McTeague asserts that the individual, rather than being the free creature described by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as "Self Reliance" (1841), is conditioned by the ineluctable forces of heredity, environment, and chance, and moreover, is at every moment subject to physical and psychic deterioration. To give these themes dramatic form, Norris follows a pattern he took from the popular interpretations of evolutionary theory he had learned from LeConte and Lombroso. At the start of the novel McTeague, a massive, mentally slow, and psychologically primitive man, has reached the apex of his individual development. The simple routine of his daily life is upset when "mysterious instincts" attract him to Trina, a girl from a thrifty Swiss peasant background. Their courtship and marriage awaken his natural.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 417 words. This
study guide contains 18,629 words (approx. 62 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our McTeague: A Story of San Francisco Access Pass.
