McTeague Study Guide

Frank Norris was born in 1870 and raised in a prosperous family. His father, Benjamin Franklin Norris, Sr., was a successful businessman. Norris’s mother, Gertrude Doggett Norris, was an actress. The family moved to San Francisco seeking a better climate for the health of Norris’s mother. As a young man, Norris attended Berkeley and Harvard University, studying art and literature. He began his writing career as a journalist, which had a notable influence on his later literary work. His assignments as a journalist took him to South Africa during the Boer War and to Cuba, where he reported on the Spanish-American War. Norris’s first significant literary work, McTeague (1899), portrays the grim life of a San Francisco dentist and his descent into violence and madness. Another of Norris’s notable works is an unfinished trilogy known as The Epic of the Wheat. The completed entries in the trilogy include The Octopus (1901), which examines the conflict between California wheat farmers and a railroad company; and The Pit (1903), which focuses on the Chicago wheat exchange. Unfortunately, Norris’s premature death from peritonitis prevented the completion of the third novel, The Wolf.

McTeague is set in the late 19th century, a period marked by significant social and economic changes in America. The novel captures the effects of the Industrial Revolution, which brought about rapid urbanization, technological advancements, and significant shifts in the labor market. The urban environment of San Francisco depicted in the novel mirrors the broader trends of American cities at the time, when growing populations led to overcrowded living conditions and extreme wealth inequality. Also, the novel reflects the immigration patterns of the time. The diverse population of San Francisco, including various immigrant communities, is a backdrop to the novel, highlighting the challenges and opportunities newcomers faced in America This period saw significant immigration from Europe and Asia, contributing to the cultural melting pot of American cities but also leading to social tension. Norris presents a diverse cast of characters in McTeague and frequently appeals to racist and ethnic stereotypes in its depiction of the Jewish character Zerkow.

Frank Norris’s McTeague fits within the broader tradition of literary naturalism, which sought to depict life accurately and often pessimistically, focusing on the darker aspects of human existence. Emile Zola’s works, such as Germinal and Thérèse Raquin, share thematic similarities with McTeague, particularly in their exploration of how environmental and hereditary factors influence human behavior. In Germinal, Zola portrays the grim lives of coal miners and their brutal struggles, similar to how Norris depicts the harsh realities his characters face in the urban setting of San Francisco. Thérèse Raquin similarly explores themes of passion, crime, and guilt, mirroring McTeague’s focus on the destructive nature of greed and jealousy. McTeague has also inspired subsequent literary works. For example, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath draws on Norris’s naturalistic style to depict the struggles of the Joad family during the Great Depression, emphasizing the relentless forces of nature and society. Additionally, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice are noir novels that are similar to McTeague in their focus on the nature and consequences of human desire.