Like Crane, Frank Norris had a short life but it was rich in creative writing. The overriding theme in Norris' fiction is the impact of industrialization on peaceful agricultural communities and the consequent chaos in the lives of people who lived in these communities. His most glaring metaphor is that of the tentacles of the railway tracks spreading and choking the countryside in the appropriately titled book The Octopus. The spirit of the turn-of-the-century San Francisco is impressively captured in McTeague. Its theme, that of a powerful man failing against unexpected adversity, typifies the thrust of the best of Naturalistic writing.

| Top | Primary Works

Yvernelle, 1892; Moran of Lady Letty (e-text), 1898; Blix (e-text), 1899; A Man's Woman, 1899; McTeague (McTeague Link), 1899; The Octopus (e-text), 1901; The Pit, 1903; A Deal in Wheat, 1903; Responsibilities of the Novelist, 1903; The Joyous Miracle, 1906; Vandover and the Brute, 1914.

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Books

Ahnebrink, Lars. The Beginnings of Naturalism in American Fiction: A Study of the Works of Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, and Frank Norris, with special reference to some European influences, 1891-1903. New York: Russell & Russell, 1961. PS371 .A2

Dillingham, William B. Frank Norris, Instinct and Art. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. PS2473 D5

French, Warren G. Frank Norris. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1962. PS2473 .F7

Graham, Don, ed. Critical Essays on Frank Norris. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980. PS2473 .C7

Hochman, Barbara. The Art of Frank Norris, Storyteller. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1988. PS2473 .H6

McElrath, Joseph R. Frank Norris Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992. PS2473 .M34

Marchand, Ernest. Frank Norris: A Study. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1966.

Walker, Franklin. Frank Norris: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, Doran, & Co., Inc. 1932.

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Articles

Bower, Stephanie. "Dangerous Liaisons: Prostitution, Disease, and Race in Frank Norris's Fiction." Modern fiction studies 42.1 (Sprg 1996): 31-61.

Casutto, Leonard. "'Keeping Company' with the Old Folks: Unravelling the Edge of McTeague's Deterministic Fabric." American Literary Realism 25 (Wint 1993): 46-55.

Civello, Paul. "Evolutionary Feminism, Popular Romance, and Frank Norris's 'Man's Woman'." Studies in american fiction 24.1 (Sprg 1996): 23-45.

Cullick, Jonathan S. "Configurations of Events in the Narrative Structure of McTeague." American literary realism 27.3 (Sprg 1995): 37-48.

Dawson, Hugh J. "McTeague as Ethnic Stereotype." American Literary Realism 20.1 (Fall 1987): 34-44.

Dean, Thomas K. "Domestic Horizons: Gender, Genre, Narrative Structure and the Anti-Western of Frank Norris." American literary realism 27.3 (Sprg 1995): 48-64.

Dillingham, William B. "The Old Folks of McTeague," Nineteenth Century Fiction, 16: 169-173.

Dow, William. "Fiction Is Not Real: The Performative and Norris's McTeague." Esq: a journal of the american renaissance 42.2 (1996): 77-93.

Freedman, William. "Oral Passivity and Oral Sadism in Norris's McTeague." Literature and Psychology 30 (1980): 52-61.

Gill, John S. "Trina Sieppe: First Lady of American Literary Naturalism," U of Kansas City Review, 29: 77-80.

Hoffman, Charles G. "Norris and the Responsibility of the Novelist." South Atlantic Quarterly, October 1955: 508-15.

Howells, William Dean. "Frank Norris." North American Review, December 1902: 769-78.

Johnson, George W. "Frank Norris and Romance." American Literature, March 1961: 52-63.

- - -. "The Frontier Behind Frank Norris's McTeague," Huntington Library Q., 26: 91-104.

Kaplan, Charles. "Fact into Fiction in McTeague," Harvard Library Bulletin, 8: 381-85.

King, Christine H. "Humor Separates the Artist from the Bungler in Vandover and the Brute." American literary realism 29.2 (Wint 1997): 14-27.

Lamb, Robert P. "How Marcus Schouler Found McTeague in Death Valley: Frank Norris, the 'Pivotal Event,' and the Long Arm of Realism." American Transcendental Quarterly 11.2 (Jun 1997): 137-.

Litton, Alfred G. "The Kinetoscope in McTeague: 'The Crowning Scientific Achievement of the Nineteenth Century'." Studies in American Fiction 19.1 (Sprg 1991): 107-12.

McFatter, Susan P. "Parody and Dark Projections: Medieval Romance and the Gothic in McTeague." Western American Literature 26.2 (Aug 1991): 119-35.

Pizer, Donald. "Evolutionary Ethical Dualism in Frank Norris's Vandover and the Brute and McTeague," PMLA, 76: 552-560.

- - -. "The Biological Determinism of McTeague in Our Time." American literary realism 29.2 (Wint 1997): 27.33.

Shroeder, John. "The Shakespearean Plots of McTeague." American Literary Realism 14.2 (Autm 1981): 289-296.

Walker, Don D. "The Western Naturalism of Frank Norris," Western American Literature, 2: 14-29.

Ware, Thomas C. "'Gold to Airy Thinness Beat': The Midas Touch in Frank Norris's McTeague." Interpretations 13.1 (Fall 1981): 39-47.

Watson, Charles S. "A Source for the Ending of McTeague," American Literary Realism, 5: 173-74. 

Study Questions

1. Locate Norris's allusions to animals and animal-like behavior in the excerpt from Vandover and the Brute. Analyze what he is trying to say about human motivation and character.

2. Compare and contrast the correspondent from Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat " with Norris's Vandover. Analyze the prose style, thematic content, use of narrative point of view, and portrait of human nature that these works convey.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 6: Late Nineteenth Century - Frank Norris." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap6/norris.html (provide page date or date of your login).   

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