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Didacticism In Frank Norris' Mcteague

Didacticism in Frank Norris' McTeague

Frank Norris' Mcteague's niche in American Literature has been characterized again and again as strictly Naturalist. The novel does well in this genre. Among other things, it is a scientific, representative, pessimistic study of the common people or lower and middle classes which ultimately ends in tragedy. It is not the purpose of this essay to dispute these qualifications; rather to question the genre itself.
The scientific novel is impossible for a variety of reasons. Practitioners of Naturalism, including Norris, attempted to create representative characters with inherited biological traits (traits which they have no control over), plant these characters in a meticulously defined setting, and produce/predict the resulting behavior. The naturalistic novel relies on the assumption that this behavior is, indeed, predictable. This assumption is, at the very least, questionable.
The Scientific Method, in its simplest form, is essentially made up of four basic elements. According to an on-line encyclopedia, they are as follows:
1. Characterization (Quantification, observation and measurement)
2. Hypothesis (An explanation of the Characterization)
3. Prediction (Logical deduction from the hypothesis
4. Experiment (Test of all of the above)

It is not the intent of this essay to investigate whether Dreiser, Zola, London or other Naturalists practiced these methods successfully within the context of the novel. It is clear however, that Norris did not. Mcteague may successfully incorporate the observatory and explanatory elements of the Scientific method as well as other nuances of the Naturalistic genre; however, his study is worthless without elements three and four.

It is these elements, moreover, the logical deduction from the hypothesis and the testing of the other elements to prove consistency which are practically impossible for a writer of fiction to accomplish. Character, setting and nearly ever...