x dismiss this message
Did you know you can edit this page?
-
Sign Into Shelfari
-
Choose something to edit
-
Save your contributions
see page history
Description edit
Frank Norris' graphic portrayal of the seamy side of survival in turn-of-the-century urban America remains shocking and powerful today -and its conclusion just as harrowing.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Quotes edit
-
“These young girls disturbed and perplexed him. He did not like them, obstinately cherishing that intuitive suspicion of all things feminine—the perverse dislike of an overgrown boy.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
-
He had sold his happiness for money; he had bartered all his tardy romance for some miserable banknotes.
Highlighted by 29 Kindle customers -
It was the old battle, old as the world, wide as the world--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,' without knowing why; that grips the monster; that fights to strangle it, to thrust it down and back.
Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers -
Perhaps he dimly saw that this must be so, that it belonged to the changeless order of things--the man desiring the woman only for what she withholds; the woman worshipping the man for that which she yields up to him. With each concession gained the man's desire cools; with every surrender made the woman's adoration increases. But why should it be so?
Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers -
Suddenly the animal in the man stirred and woke; the evil instincts that in him were so close to the surface leaped to life, shouting and clamoring.
Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers -
Below the fine fabric of all that was good in him ran the foul stream of hereditary evil, like a sewer. The vices and sins of his father and of his father's father, to the third and fourth and five hundredth generation, tainted him. The evil of an entire race flowed in his veins.
Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers -
McTeague's mind was as his body, heavy, slow to act, sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about the man. Altogether he suggested the draught horse, immensely strong, stupid, docile, obedient.
Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers -
These were his only pleasures--to eat, to smoke, to sleep, and to play upon his concertina.
Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers -
And in some strange, inexplicable way this brutality made Trina all the more affectionate; aroused in her a morbid, unwholesome love of submission, a strange, unnatural pleasure in yielding, in surrendering herself to the will of an irresistible, virile power.
Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers -
She--perhaps McTeague as well--felt that there was a certain inadequateness about the ceremony. Was that all there was to it? Did just those few muttered phrases make them man and wife? It had been over in a few moments, but it had bound them for life. Had not something been left out? Was not the whole affair cursory, superficial? It was disappointing.
Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers -
They took a great pleasure in each other's company, but silently and with reservation, having the masculine horror of any demonstration of friendship.
Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
IT was Sunday, and, according to his custom on that day, McTeague took his dinner at two in the afternoon at the car conductors coffee-joint on Polk Street.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Series & Lists edit
This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Doubleday & McClure
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1899
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 442
Publisher: Doubleday & McClure
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1899
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 442
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 813.4
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
See all 50 tags
Movie Connections edit
- Desert Gold (1914) (IMDb): Short silent film adaptation
- Life's Whirlpool (1916) (IMDb): Silent film adaptation
- Greed (1924) (IMDb): Silent film adaptation
- McTeague (TV) (1992) (IMDb): Film adaptation made for television by PBS
More Books Like This edit
We’re hiding the errata, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.
