Animal instinct

McTeague by Frank Norris is so awesome.  First of all we will start by talking about McTeague’s animal nature.  McTeague is the main character of this novel and he is a big brute of a man with blond shaggy hair and hands like meat hammers.  We first learn of his animal ways by seeing he has a routine when doing his job.  We see a full blown detailed occurrence of his sexual emergence.  When a woman named Trina comes see him since he is a dentist, this is his thoughts “… the sudden panther leap of the animal, lips drawn, fangs aflash, hideous, monstrous, not to be resisted, and the simultaneous arousing of the other man, the better self that cries, ‘Down, down’…The fury in him was as the fury of a young bull in the heat of high summer” (Norris 21).  Now really this is such a sexual innuendo and this guy is scary when it comes to his feelings.  Not only those he have these thoughts about his patient who is lying on the chair unconscious but he acts upon them and kisses the woman.  Norris is really good in playing with this animal personality that he keeps making this human a monster. 

McTeague becomes a creature as the novel progresses.  Each description hints that there is to be a major event that will make a monster and the human will not exist.  After McTeague marries Trina the unconscious patient and has been with her for a while he goes and beats her. Some animals kill or abandon their babies or each other when they have been touched by humanity.  In the case of McTeague we see that he kills Trina because she is touched by one of human’s sins, greed, and he himself has been touched by it.  Therefore his alcohol induced thought process is to get rid of which makes his life bad.    

Twins

 

It is known that twins can look very similar and yet act so different.  At some point of our lives we wish we could have a twin to help us out.  Various studies have been done over the years on how twins act and how they are molded by their environment or upbringing. 

Mark Twain author of Pudd'nhead Wilson plays with the concept of what a twin is.  In class we discussed he had a grate obsession with twins.  In his short novel we are introduced to a set young boys who are like twins.  Their names are Tom the wealthy heir to the Driscoll's fortune and Chambers who is child born from an enslaved woman  I want to clarify before I proceed that Mark Twain's novel is a satire which means that he over exaggerates different things.  The mother of Chambers who is enslaved by the small fraction of African American blood, raises both children.  Roxy, witnesses a encounter her master has with other slaves and she wants to keep her child safe.  Roxy's solution is to switch the clothing of the babies. 

According to the "one drop" concept that Mark Twain plays with, the real Tom is born of high class blood and in the novel we see that he is the humble one.  Though he became a slave because of Roxy, he takes what live gives him and does not question it.  On the other hand we see that Chambers (the fake Tom) is born of a different blood and with his upbringing is a brat who wants everything his way.  We see what happens when twins switch to try to better one or the other.  We see the darkness of wealth and power take a hold of their heart and lead them to their demise. 

This twin concept is like having a soul in two bodies one is evil and one is good.  So nature has an influence on a person as well as nurture.  In Twain's novel when the a person is born with a dark soul there is nothing changing it.

Mark Twain

      I love reading books by Mark Twain he just rights beautifully.  He paints the most wonderful scenaries for all his books.  For example in the story "Pudd'nhead Wilson" the way he describes every little detail of this small time is just wonderful.  I felt like I wanted to go there and see more myself what he saw.  If I could visit those the many towns Twain described in his novels I would just for a few minutes to be able to see the same wonders he does. So here i a little something he wrote about the town Dawson's Landing "In 1830 it was a snug little collection of modes one and two story frame dwellings... Each of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced with white palings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touch-me-nots..." (Twain 21).  He goes on how to get there and just paints a scenary unlike any other author.  Can we say Twain is just a grate story teller.  Even his characters are described to perfection and the way they are introduced I almost felt like I was really meeting them.  For the time this novel is written it is a very nice read.  It is easy to understand and take it in for what it is.
      One thing that impressed me was that this is one of his novels he wrote in a hurry because he needed that money.  I am so surprised that he would take such care with writing about the scenery.  Though it is small it gets its point across with such beauty.  I really admire Twain's ability to write like that.  I don't think I could ever write such wonderful pieces in such a small time frame.  So bravo to Twain and to does authors who were able to make a masterpiece.  

MASC

            After attending the MASC I was amazed at the amounts of books and history they had.  It was wonderful to see books that were written around the same time that Melville wrote his.  Many nobles written in the late 1800s have were very similar to Herman Melville’s writing style.  For example one book that I had the chance to look at was called The Comstock Club by C. C. Goodwin in 1891.  This book was written almost like a journal from a miner’s point of view.  This book talked about the life of rich miners who buy a cabin and live together.  This miners create a sort of brotherhood and spend their free type mostly talking about stocks (hence the title) and their daily lives.  From this book we can see the value of various products that people value and what it means to each one.

            Melville writes about an obsession that a whaler named Ahab has with a whale named Moby Dick.  This whole story also talks about a brotherhood between all this men who live their lives to obtain what little money they can.  They live in one enclosed area and share the dream of finding sufficient whales to obtain money.  In The Comstock Club we see this similar brotherhood the men have a goal to obtain more riches and enjoy the company of other males so that they may discuss what the best buy is.   We see this sort of brotherhood in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance.  Hawthorne’s novel shows the brotherhood between his character Coverdale and Holligsworth.  It seems that in the 1900s there was still separation of sexes and that man valued each other’s company more than having a woman by their side.  I am assuming that in that time a man could be a bachelor for quite some time and it was not frowned upon. 

            It seemed that those male authors mainly wrote about bad experiences but also as a way of warning to other men that things can happen.  Other than providing a little adventure these authors provided history of the past.  With their novels they show how brotherhoods were important and explain the benefits.