SOURCE: McFatter, Susan Prothro. “Parody and Dark Projections: Medieval Romance and the Gothic in McTeague.” Western American Literature 26, no. 2 (summer 1991): 119-35.

In the following essay, McFatter argues that in McTeague Norris intended to create a parody of the medieval romance genre.

More than one Norris critic has commented on the obtrusive craftsmanship of McTeague, a work characterized by conspicuous animal imagery and an intrusive narrator who insists that heredity and environment control the characters' actions. Other commenters note the obvious resemblance between the characters of Polk Street and those that people Zola's naturalistic works.¹ If we read the novel as a strict work of naturalism, however, we may overlook Norris's skillful interweaving of genres, dismissing the work, as does Perry Westbrook, merely as an “interesting showcase of naturalistic attitudes and conventions.”² But McTeague is actually a carefully structured work divided into two equal parts:³ the first half of...