Mcteague As A Social Commentary Essay -- essays research papers

Written in 1899, Frank Norris novel, McTeague serves as a view of societal factions of his time period. Norris illustrates the stratification of inn in this San Francisco community by employ the concept of Social Darwinism. He gives detailed accounts of the inner workings of society along with the emotions of the time. Through his characters, Norris shows the separation of classes and the greed that grew abundantly during the late nineteenth century. He also gives a grim brief of survival in his depiction of the theory of natural selection.In the first chapter, Norris paints a picture of a township setting. He describes Polk Street asone of those grouchy streets peculiar to Western cities, situated in the heart of the residence quarter, simply occupied by small trades people who lived in the rooms higher up their shops. There were corner drug stores with huge jars of red, yellow and green liquids in their windows, very brave and gay stationers stores, where illustrated weekli es were tacked upon bulletin boards barber shops with cigar stands in their vestibules sad-looking plumbers offices gimcrack restaurants, in whose windows one saw piles of unopened oysters weighted buck by cubes of ice, and china pigs and cows knee deep in layers of flannel beans.In this paragraph, the reader gets a visual image of a town during the 19th century. Cozy, quaint and rather poor, this town exists as an example of either other town at this time. Also, in setting the activities of the time period, No...