McTeague, by Frank Norris

MCTEAGUE—A CATHOLIC NOVEL

Secondary level instructors, including home-schooling parents, looking for suitable and instructive literature are invited to read McTeague, an all but forgotten novel by an author too long ignored., Frank Norris’ (1870-1902). McTeague is easy to read, the symbolism almost jumps off the pages, there is nothing salacious, there is comic relief that intensifies the later dramatic denouement, the violence is not portrayed in a positive light, and the plot provokes philosophical, spiritual, psychological, and social reflections as it reveals cultural illustrations of American life, circa 1890s. The themes remain applicable to our times.

Most importantly, readers cannot help but see riveting examples of the devil at work as a decent married couple descend ever more deeply into evil. This story is a rare and frightening warning about how even good people can lose their souls. Whether Norris intended to convey that lesson, he did and for that reason one can say that McTeague is a truly Catholic novel. This review will focus on the various themes as exemplified in the plot.

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS

"All philosophy starts with the Homeric myths of ancient Greece."  That is so because seemingly innocuous events raise philosophical questions. McTeague’s mother, determined that her son not follow his father into the mines, apprenticed him to a traveling dentist. Though dim-witted, McTeague eventually became a moderately competent San Francisco dentist. Satisfied with his life, he works six days a week, and relaxes on Sunday eating, drinking beer, and sleeping. Then 20-year old Trina arrives, having broken a tooth. She innocently arouses the dentist’s first ever love interest. They have a virtuous courtship.

McTeague's best friend, Marcus Schuler, had a mild, ongoing love interest in Trina. He magnanimously surrenders Trina to McTeague.

Not long after, Trina reluctantly purchases a lottery ticket. Against all odds, she wins $5,000, a princely sum in those days. But that apparent financial blessing eventually serves to reveal a serious spiritual weakness in Trina. This good, well meaning girl is strongly prone to greed.

McTeague and Trina marry. The tendency toward greediness lies dormant for several years as the young couple lead a happy life.  Unbeknown to them, Marcus, a rising power in local politics, bitterly regrets giving up Trina. He bemoans not losing Trina, but the $5,000 that would be his had he married her. Consumed with anger, he alerts the authorities that McTeague has no dental license. Forbidden to practice, the couple descend into poverty, which leads to a most violent climax.

When their love ends in disaster, readers cannot help but reflect on that broken tooth. If, as theologians teach, noting happens by chance, then why does God allow people to come to together who will bring out each other's evil inclinations?

Consider too the fatal consequences set in motion when MacTeague left mining. In Norris’ time, Horatio Alger stories were popular. People delighted in stories of a plucky, hard working boy rising from poverty to become a captain of industry. But as in the tradition of Shakespeare, when one rises out of his place in what scholars call the Elizabethan Chain of Being, trouble, comedy, or history will follow inevitably. MacTeague rose above his place on the chain, and like Macbeth, was ultimately destroyed.

And, of course, why did Trina win the lottery, a statistically improbable victory? Instead of using her lottery fortune wisely, Trina hoarded it. Why did God permit Trina to be tempted by money, knowing that she was a latent miser? In this life, we will never arrive at clear answers. But we must believe that God is active in everything. That may not be obvious, but the important point to understand is that God hides in randomness.

SPIRITUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

Spiritual and psychological phenomena are usually impossible to untangle, and so they are in the novel. They shall be treated in tandem emphasizing one or the other as appropriate. Separating sin from psychological problems is impossible, which is why only God can judge people.

Religious indifferentism, the idea that one religion is as good as another, is, objectively speaking, a mortal sin. Coupled with that is a notion that one does not need religion to be good. Most contemporary Catholics are as infected with those beliefs as anyone else. And, indeed, there are millions of good Americans who are good and yet never or rarely worship God. McTeague and wife Trina were such persons.

Both concepts are wrong and the McTeague novel provides an excellent illustration of why they are wrong. Catholics no longer understand that natural goodness is not sufficient for salvation; salvation requires supernatural goodness. The latter is not altogether easy to define but it is characterized by doing good acts that are contrary to our human nature. Example include granting sincere forgiveness to those who wrong us, loving the unlovable, and loving our enemies. Supernatural goodness, above all, requires loving God. Our task is not to become better persons, but to become something other than what we are. That something other is to be become Christ like. That comes by cooperating with sanctifying grace, which is the sharing in the life of God. While God can work outside His normal channels, the normal channel for receiving sanctifying grace is via the sacraments.

To expand on this all important but all but forgotten concept--If Heaven is a place of merely natural goodness, which is how most people imagine it, natural goodness would be sufficient. But supernatural goodness is necessary for salvation because God has something more than natural goodness in store for the Blessed. As St. Paul says, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man what God has for those who love Him. Keep in mind that Hell is something that humans can imagine, however inaccurately. Christ offered descriptions of Hell. However, He offered no clear description of Heaven. He could not do so.  After all, the imagination is the faculty by which the human mind creates images of what is known nut Heaven is unimaginable because it is unlike anything humans know.

There is a deep paradox in this matter. While humans are made in the image and likeness of God, and are thus in some close way like God; one is not incorrect to say, as the German Protestants of a century ago said, Gott is ganz Ander; God is totally other. Granted, none of the above is delineated in McTeague, but what is made clear is that natural goodness is not sufficient unto salvation. The devil can corrupt natural goodness; supernatural goodness, once gained, leaves the devil confused. After all, supernatural goodness is all about love and the devil does not understand love.

How easily people are seduced by hopes of wealth or by envy. Realizing that his best friend desired her, Marcus “gave up” Trina. But he was disappointed when no one honored his magnanimous gesture. He had acted charitably, but for the wrong reason. Then when Trina became wealthy he bitterly regretted his decision. Greed overcame friendship and thus Marcus financially ruined his former friend. Marcus resembles Shakespeare’s jealous, revengeful Iago who ruined Othello.

Psychologically, Marcus had high self-esteem. That very trait that motivated him to violently lash out at perceived insults. Lesson: those with the highest self-esteem are most liable to react hatefully.  

Trina rejected Mac’s impulsive courtship. Then his persistence aroused her latent sensuality. Unfortunately young women often fall for the first man who awakens their sensuality. Recall Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream wherein Titania awakes from a spell and falls in love with an ass. Norris undoubtedly was thinking of that when he encapsulated Trina’s love for McTeague as “a fairy queen enamored of a clown with ass’s ears.”

Innocent, petite Trina drove Mac to distraction. He thought of nothing but Trina. However, immediately after agreeing to marriage, McTeague felt a slight lessening of interest. This illustrates a crucial point. The partner who loves least controls the relationship. Usually this controller is the male. This is not a masculine fault. That the man is the partner less beset by emotions is nature’s way of ensuring that the male, the one who normally deals with the external world, will be better able to handle crises.

There were other hints of future disaster. Their rapid secular wedding ceremony left them feeling empty. Indeed, a church wedding with attendant rituals does tend to create a sense of an unbreakable, solidly fused new family.

Nevertheless, they settled into a workable routine and things went well. Trina was good for the former miner. He adopted upscale tastes in fashions and food. He read a newspaper and he voiced political opinions. His manners improved and he and Trina went to church on Easter, Christmas, and New Year’s.

Reading the novel, the acute reader may sense the lurking presence of an invisible, malevolent character—the devil. Norris subtly illustrated C. S. Lewis’ dictum that God claims and the devil counterclaims every square inch of space and every moment of time. Mac and Trina were good-hearted souls. Their slow descent into spiritual ruin depicts another crucial truth—the devil is content with small victories. For a while their sins seemed like harmless, even laughable faults. But those faults were progressive and finally led to dramatic evil.

Nothing is said about why they have no children. Undoubtedly they felt financially inadequate. Catholics might draw a lesson from that. The primary purpose of marriage--begetting and raising children—must not be frustrated. Couples like the McTeagues who perceive happiness as the primary end of marriage are apt to end up unhappy and unmarried. Also, couples who deliberately prevent children may suppose they are sealing themselves off from suffering, financial and otherwise. Maybe so, but when the inevitable adversities comes, they will be unprepared.

For the McTeague’s adversity came in the form of financial disaster. Barred from dentistry and unable to find suitable employment, McTeague expected Trina to spend her lottery winnings—something she would never do. Not only would she not help her spouse, she ignored financial pleas from her parents. Occasionally she surreptitiously enjoyed rolling in the coins. Trina had become a miser. As psychologists know--any prolonged, excessive behavior is neurotic. Sin and neurosis often couple together.

Trina understood that she was a miser, but she denied its seriousness, a classic defense mechanism. Sinfully, perhaps, she dismissed it as a harmless peccadillo. “It’s growing on me, but never mind, it’s a good fault, and anyhow, I can’t help it.” Originally it was a minor fault; but the devil was biding his time until that fault became a major sin, one that likely doomed the couple all the way to eternal perdition. Eventually, the dimwitted McTeague, frustrated beyond endurance broke into Trina’s apartment, took her money, socked her so hard that she died, and fled to a desert. 

Trina’s thrifty nature presents a clear lesson: Actions that are neutral or even good, such as being thrifty, can become faults and then become seriously sinful. Readers must note that Trina tried to justify her misery behavior. People always want to appear good. She needed a confessor who would probe for hidden sins.

Everyone must play the hand that he or she is dealt. Had Trina overcome her problem, which by God’s grace she could have done, she would have gained merit. However, raised by Christian parents who ignored religion, she lacked the requisite spiritual resources. Young readers must understand that, as the novel illustrates, God does not wait for people to be ready for spiritual tests. He sends opportunities and allows temptations whether they are ready or not. Be prepared.

Watching Trina spiritually descend into mortal sin is instructive. As St. Augustine said, sin is act of will curving inward on itself. Trina eventually isolated herself, which is spiritually and psychologically dangerous. Isolated, disappointed, and angry, her mind was fertile ground for the devil.

To cover her misery behavior, Trina told lies. Then lying became a habit. Humans quickly form habits, good and bad. St. Thomas Aquinas stresses the necessity of forming good habits. People whose habit is to tell the truth will tend to do the right thing because they know ahead of time that they will not lie their way out of trouble.

As the couple disintegrated, Mac punished Trina by biting her fingers. Eventually they were amputated. Why did she allow this? She was no masochist. The miser allowed it because at some level she desired punishment. Again, she really needed a sacramental confession, but having been gone from church so long, she did not think of it.

Norris illustrated Trina’s disintegrating soul by describing her external appearance: dumpy, poorly dressed, isolated, slovenly, and with hair that was a “veritable rat’s nest.” She left her house unclean too. An sloppy external personal environment and appearance almost always indicates a sloppy internal condition. Her “little fault” totally overwhelmed her.

Psychologists identify five stages people commonly proceed through in a crisis: Shock, denial, anger, acceptance, and re-entry. After he was disbarred, McTeague went through the first three. Unfortunately, being unable to think his way to solvency, he became stuck in the anger stage.

Unable to pay the rent, the McTeague’s moved into one squalid apartment after another. They even took the sordid quarters wherein a cruel trash dealer had murdered his wife. Evil thrives in such cultures. This observer has witnessed too many instances of evil lingering in past dens of inequity. Avoid these places. They are spiritually and sometimes even physically dangerous.

SOCIAL SCIENCE REFLECTIONS

The novel contains insightful social science lessons. Thanks to Trina, the newly married McTeague developed upscale tastes, which illustrates how women tend to civilize men. In fact, in our own times, when women refuse this task, many men resist learning the finer points of civilized behavior.

When the McTeague's lost their income, Mac demanded the accoutrements of his new lifestyle. Not long after, however, he reverted to his slovenly self, thus indicating how thin is the veneer of civilization.

Trina’s positive influence is extremely significant. In contemporary America, many women are aping men. When women act like men, men treat them as equals and then lose their fear of females. Like bears that have lost their fear of humans, these men prey on women. Which is also why violence between men and women is common. In bygone days, a man who hit a woman was ostracized. Mac respected and even feared Trina until she let her appearance go. Wearing ragged clothes, and with her disheveled hair, she no longer looked feminine. Real women control men. Petite, feminine Trina controlled Mac. When she lost her femininity, she lost that control.

Social scientists recognize the profile of potentially violent men: strong, stupid, and impulsive. Girls must learn to avoid such men. Mac was not normally impulsive. But when he was pushed into a situation that shamed his masculine sense, and one that he lacked intellectual resources to control, his lower impulses took over.

During a crisis, people tend revert to last dynamic that worked for them. Mac returned to mining. Knowing that tendency makes our leaders highly predictable.

Men and women employ characteristically different ways of engaging in psychological healing. Mac went fishing. For many men, being alone, and thus allowing their minds time to restructure their thinking, often relieves physical tensions while assisting problem solving. Trina, to the contrary, found solace by talking with a woman friend. This difference needs be emphasized. Nowadays men are often berated for not expressing their feelings. The truth is that revealing feelings about sensitive matters is counter productive to most men. 

CONCLUSION

Frank Norris packed a multitude of universal and timeless lessons into MacTeague. Catholics especially would do well to discover this eminently easy to read, haunting novel.