Frank Norris
Frank Norris is a representative figure of American critical realism literature, representative works such as "McTegg" and "Octopus".
Frank Norris was born into a wealthy family, his father was a wealthy jeweler, and his mother was an avid artist, and this family environment had a significant impact on Norris's later literary career.
Growing up, he was greatly influenced by Zola, a representative figure of French critical realism literature, and his influence can be seen both from Norris's youth and to the heyday of his creation. It is said that when he was a student at Harvard University in his early years, he fell in love with Zola's novels. There are shadows of Zola in his works, such as McTegger.
McTegg
McTegger is Frank Norris's most iconic work, a strong attack on the money-worshiping trend prevalent in American society at the time. It shows us the frenetic pursuit of money among Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the face of money, people's friendship, affection and love become extremely fragile, and people become greedy, selfish and indifferent.
The protagonist of the story, McTegger, was originally an ordinary citizen of San Francisco, and because he met a jianghu doctor by chance, he learned to be a dentist. He had only learned some simple medical knowledge from the dentist and was eager to open a dentist clinic in San Francisco.
Margs Skoler was a good friend of McTegger's, and they fell in love with Qurina Seeber at the same time. At this time, Margs Schöller voluntarily withdrew from the competition in order to maintain his friendship with McTeag, so McTeag married Qu lina Seaber.
The friendship between Margs Skoler and McTegg was so precious that the two became even more intimate because of it. However, it is such a seemingly indestructible friendship that becomes fragile after Qu Lina wins a large prize in the lottery.
After Qu Lina Seeber won the lottery ticket, the family lived a middle-class life. Margers Skoller's life was getting worse and worse, and he envied McTegg's life. The great contrast of lives caused a strong dissatisfaction among Margs Skoler. He felt more and more that he was stupid and took the initiative to quit. The two people who could have been courteous to love had a big fight in front of money.
Margs Skoler began to become increasingly cold to McTegg, losing his temper with him from time to time, and even trying to hurt McTeag with a knife for a trivial matter. Finally, mcTeggy was exposed for practicing medicine illegally. This officially declared that the friendship between the two people had broken down and they had become enemies of each other.
After McTeag's dental clinic was forced to close, McTeag lost the means to make a living, he began to humble himself, his love for his wife became cold day by day, and he often drank and scolded his wife, squandered the family's property, and killed his wife in order to get his wife's lottery prize.
When food and clothing are in question, love has become worthless. There is only money as a bridge between love and marriage, and people become mercenary, as long as there is money, they can not love.
His friend Margos Skoler followed the detective team to track McTegger all the way for a prize. Eventually, both were killed in Death Valley.
"McTegg" fully shows that in a material world where money is supreme, all values are headed by money. Money has a powerful corrosive force on people, and in the face of money, people's virtues, people's affection and people's love will encounter great challenges, and people's mutual relations will be changed, changed, and even mutual will become vicious.
Why is this so, and what kind of society is this?
Story backdrop
At the end of the 19th century, after thirty or forty years of development, the United States basically completed industrialization, urbanization and modernization, and its total industrial output value ranked first in the world, and the urbanization rate reached about 70%. The country has accumulated a great deal of wealth, a large number of newly affluent bourgeoisie has been born, and the United States has stepped into the threshold of a modern industrial state.
At the same time as the rapid economic development, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is widening, on the one hand, the monopoly of industry and financial giants have accumulated wealth, on the other hand, the industrial proletarians are struggling on the death line. Big capitalists monopolize industries and accumulate wealth by excluding small capitalists and squeezing workers. The broad masses of workers, under the brutal exploitation of the capitalists, live a precarious life of poverty.
At the same time, American society became a "money-oriented" society.
"A society where everything looks at money"
At the end of the 19th century, the United States became a "money-oriented" society. There, everyone blindly pursues money, the closest relatives are worthless in the face of money, father and son turn against each other, brothers become enemies, husbands and wives fall apart, people's friendship, affection and love become extremely fragile, and all that is left between people is naked money relations. In the process of leading to the Golden Kingdom, people have a desire for money that will never be filled.
Americans have become more secular, advocating materialism and money worship, focusing on material progress, and pursuing money and wealth to reduce people to economic animals, slaves to money, and interests addicts. The human value system is dominated by a single material success.
In the social life of excessive awareness of money exchange, people rarely rely on certain people, and each individual can only rely on himself, so people show unusual indifference to people and things that have nothing to do with themselves, and even the interdependent relationship between husband and wife may tend to disintegrate. Incidents such as father and son turning against each other and friends falling in love with each other occur frequently. Infinite, disorderly economic struggles have led people in modern societies to fight for survival in accordance with the "law of the jungle."
Under the corrosion of money worship, people believe in the creed of money omnipotent life, and they are very indifferent and selfish to blood kinship, and all that remains between people is naked money relations.