The Octopus Summary
Frank Norris

Everything you need to understand or teach The Octopus by Frank Norris.

The Octopus Summary & Study Guide

The Octopus Summary

The Octopus: A Story of California, first published in 1901 by Frank Norris, presents modern readers with a view of a specific time and place in American history when California was a new, open land of promise. The country's ability to produce agricultural abundance seemed endless, threatened only by greed and the interference of laws that serve the rich. The novel takes place in the San Joaquin valley, in the middle of the state...

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Study Pack

The The Octopus Study Pack contains:

The Octopus Study Guide

Introduction

Author Biography

Plot Summary

Characters

Themes

Style

Criticism

Adaptations

Topics for Further Study

Frank Norris Biographies (6)

Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr.

1,244 words, approx. 5 pages

The best work of Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr. (1870-1902), American novelist and critic, achieves a raw force that has won him an important place in the history of American fiction.Frank Norris was b... Read more

(Benjamin) Frank(lin) Norris, (Jr.)

11,121 words, approx. 38 pages

Frank Norris is a central figure in American literary history mainly because of three novels, McTeague (1899), The Octopus (1901), and The Pit (1903). But he is also important because of what he indic... Read more

(Benjamin) Frank(lin) Norris, (Jr.)

4,865 words, approx. 17 pages

Frank Norris has been viewed as a significant literary critic in one major way. His principal and quite specific image for most has been that of a spokesman for the literary movement which first devel... Read more

(Benjamin) Frank(lin) Norris, (Jr.)

7,266 words, approx. 25 pages

Frank Norris is known principally as an American novelist rather than a western one. He was perceived as a national artist by the majority of his contemporaries, and at the time of his early death in ... Read more

Frank Norris

11,809 words, approx. 40 pages

Biography EssayFrank Norris is a central figure in American literary history mainly because of three novels, McTeague (1899), The Octopus (1901), and The Pit (1903). But he is also important beca... Read more

Frank Norris

4,566 words, approx. 16 pages

Although he died less than five years after publishing his first novel, Frank Norris stands as one of the key figures of early twentieth-century American literature. In novels such as McTeague: A Stor... Read more

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The Octopus SummaryFrank Norris