Role Of Social Darwinism In Mcteague

Frank Norris, through the work of his novel McTeague, changed America in several ways. Norris was born in Chicago in 1870, during a naturalistic time period (The Literature Network). This novel was written with many themes that define naturalism, such as greed and lust. Social Darwinism, which can be defined as “survival of the fittest” also played a huge role in Norris’ making of this novel (schoolworkhelper). Using the themes of lust, sexual tragedy, and Social Darwinism, Frank Norris wrote one of the most controversial novels that our world has come about to this day in McTeague. Frank Norris, a Midwestern-born man, did not encounter the west coast of the United States until 1890 when he attended the University of California at Berkeley.
Naturalism and Darwinism blend together in such that they both say that the more superior in social status one is, the better off that person is. For example, if a person is born with a disability or deformation, the theory of naturalism believes that the person will never be able to be looked at in a different way because the only thing that matters is that the person has or once had that disability or deformation. Similarly, Social Darwinism says that only the strongest suited will survive. However, “Darwin never applied his theories to human social behavior,” which caused many authors to abuse the actual science (The Literature Network). Along with Social Darwinism, many compared naturalism to a specialized version of realism, also a literary movement in the lifetime of Frank Norris (The Literature Network). Realism is essentially what it sounds like. It is “attention to detail, an effort to replicate a true nature of reality that novelists never used” (The Literature Network). Norris grew up in the time period in which all three movements played a key role in the works of authors, including Frank