Social Darwinism In Mcteague

Frank Norris People structure their beliefs based on the times in which they grew up or lived. In McTeague, written by Frank Norris the characters’ social statuses balances on the idea of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is the idea that your belongings and occupation determine your place on the social totem pole. The time period in which this novel was written was heavily influenced by Social Darwinism. The novel was based on an actual murder of a young woman named Sarah Collins that took place in the slums of San Francisco, California in 1893. This novel was heavily criticized and not considered to be socially acceptable at first. The novel McTeague was a work influenced by Social Darwinism and inspired by the Sarah Collins murder,
The inspiration behind McTeague, the second novel in Norris’ first trilogy stemmed from a story published in the San Francisco Examiner. Norris began collecting information for his novels, “Norris's knowledge of San Francisco developed in the years between 1891 and 1899. As a feature writer, he interviewed residents of all classes, from tamale vendors to society matrons and the crews of visiting battle ships. As the Tom Wolfe of his time, he took meticulous notes of life along Polk Street, reporting details so accurately that scholars have been able to trace the prototypes of all the shops and even the festivities recorded in the novel, McTeague”(Frank Norris). This story described the way Patrick Collins murdered his wife, Sarah Collins, over money. Patrick would ask for money and she would not relinquish it because she knew he would spend it on alcohol. He threatened many times to kill her, until one day he carried out his promise and he maliciously murdered her in the coat room of a kindergarten classroom. The time in which McTeague was first published the novel was met with disapproval, now the acceptance of these novels has become more prevalent, “The Norris canon includes some of the most conventional turn-of-the-century short stories possible in the realm of genteel fiction. At the same time, decadent delight in an artifice featuring two women
This trilogy was entitled The Epic Of The Wheat, this trilogy focused on a look into the everyday lives of wheat producers and ranchers. They were put against the political machine and the railroad game, “the members of the ranching community are forced to take up arms against the state. Inspired by the Mussel Slough Massacre of 1880, depicts a band of strong ruthless Westerners who are crushed by inexorable forces of nature and capital they had sought to control. The twenty-two essays in this volume cover the years 1896–1902. They include book reviews, articles, literary columns, and parodies of popular authors in the hilarious “Perverted Tales.” They address theories of literature, the state of American fiction, and the social responsibilities of the artist”(Norris Novels and Essays). The Pit was the second book of the unfinished trilogy. This novel commonly referred to as a story of Chicago, tells the way in which the board ran and how wheat pricing was a monstrosity for the farmers. This eventually climbed the list of best-selling books.(Frank Norris: A Life) Critics tend to have mixed views toward this novel, “Many critics have vainly scrutinized for the relation between the business and the marriage plot Thus, they often consider the marriage plot unnecessary and responsible for the novel's