"McTeague" and "The Great Gatsby"

As I began reading McTeague, I was struck with a strange feeling of déjà vu. Haven’t I read a story like this before? When? What is this vague familiarity I feel with a book I know I have never read before.

Then it hit me. McTeague reminds me of The Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) depicts the realistic, riotous nightlife of the 1920s. The nightlife of New York City revolves around the young, mysterious Jay Gatsby whose sole goal in life is to win back the love of his life. The problem? She’s married. To add to the tangled mess, her husband is having an affair with a married woman. The reader is experiences the confusion of passion through the eyes of a rather confused young man.

At the conclusion of the story I felt depressed and wondered why I picked up the novel in the first place. . . . Oh, I had to do reading for US History and I was told it was an American classic. Right.

As I began reading McTeague the same sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me. Both stories seem to drag along (though I have to admit, I have gotten through them both. Emma on the other hand . . .) But my lack of interest isn’t what connects McTeague and The Great Gatsby in my mind.

It’s the authors’ naturalistic views of humanity. In both works, the characters are motivated by their natural instincts. While F. Scott Fitzgerald simply retells the depressing party-life of the 1920s, Frank Norris actually discusses the animal passions of human nature. McTeague’s “love” for Trina is not driven by a Biblical care and love, but by animalistic desires to control and claim Trina as his own. McTeague, and the other characters of the book, seemingly have no control over their animalistic instincts.

In both novels, characters are bound to their natural instincts—they cannot escape their desires toward lust and greed. What a sad life.

And a sadder thought is that our world is consumed with the same lifestyles. We are constantly tol that whether life is a riotous party or commonplace life, all life is captive to animalistic instincts. Don’t fight against it—your struggling is futile.

That view, my friends, a lie.

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