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The Octopus: A Story Of California Novel By Frank Norris PDF Free Download, Overview, Summary, Quotes, Reviews, Get Book.

The Octopus Book PDF Free Download

The Railroad’s Rails Seemed To Be Grasping Everything Valuable In California Like The Tentacles Of An Octopus. The Octopus Is A Remarkable Story About The Last Years Of The Frontier West, Based On A Real-life, Brutal Conflict Between Wheat Growers And The Southern Pacific Railroad In 1880.

The Monopolistic, Land-grabbing Railway Symbolised Everything The Hard-headed And Independent Farmers Hated: Consolidation, Organisation, And Uniformity. The Farmers Themselves Brutally Abused The Land, And In Their Desire For Greater Holdings They Turned To The Same Strategies As The Railway:

Subversion, Coercion, And Open Violence. As A Result, Norris Does Not Idealise Anybody In This Epic Portrayal Of The Unstable Situation. Kevin Starr Talks About How Norris Owes Zola For The Novel’s Immense Scope, Breadth, And Variety Of Characters And Elements In His Introduction.

Mcteague In 1899 Is One Of The Well-known American Author Benjamin Franklin Norris, Junior’s Realistic Books About American Society. He Is The Brother Of Charles Gilman Norris And The Sister-in-law Of Kathleen Thompson Norris.

The Octopus: A California Story (1901) And The Pit (1903), Two Novels By This Author That Were Written During The Progressive Period, Are Among His Most Well-known Works. Even Though He Did Not Publicly Embrace Socialism As A Political System, Upton Beall Sinclair And Other Socialist-progressive Authors Were Affected By His Writing And Its Socialist Attitude.

Like Many Of His Contemporaries, Thomas Henry Huxley Was Strongly Inspired By His Philosophical Defence Of The Birth Of Darwinism. Joseph Leconte, Who Taught An Upbeat Branch Of Darwinist Philosophy At The University Of California, Berkeley, And Had A Significant Impact On Norris, Was His Professor.

The Idea Of The Civilised Man Defeating The Inner “Brute,” His Animalistic Instincts, Permeates Several Of His Books, Most Notably Mcteague. Additionally Influenced By The Work Of The French Naturalist Émile Zola And The Early Criminologist Cesare Lombroso, His Unusual And Sometimes Muddled Brand Of Social Darwinism.

Synopsis Of The Octopus: A Story Of California

The San Joaquin Valley, One Of The Most Productive Agricultural Areas In The Country, Serves As The Setting For The Majority Of The Octopus’ Main Action, Which Takes Place In The Latter Years Of The American Frontier. Cities Were Growing In Importance, And Corporations, Then Known As Trusts, Asserted Centralised Control Over Vast Swaths Of The Rural Countryside. The Novel Adopts An Objective Viewpoint On The Deeper Motivations That Cause People To Meet Their Ultimate (And Often Tragic) Fates In An Impersonal, Indifferent Universe As A Naturalist Work. The Main Conflict In The Book Is Based On Norris’ Historical Research And Is Centred On The Events That Led Up To A Bloody Confrontation Between A Group Of Wheat Farmers And The Agents Of The Fictitious Pacific And Southwestern (P. And S. W.) Railroad, Which Holds A Development Agreement With The State That Gives It Ownership Of A Large Portion Of The Valley. Presley, A Poet From Outside The Area, Annixter, A Ranch Owner And Wheat Farmer, And Vanamee, A Shepherd With Mystic Leanings, Are The Three Main Characters, And They All Emerge From The Side Of The Wheat Farmers. The Story Paints A Vivid Picture Of A Dying Frontier Individualism Facing Complete Oppression From A Vast And Powerful Trust Via Their Experiences.

The Beginning Of The Book Describes How The Railway Rejected The Wheat Farmers’ Requests For Lower Freight Rates. To Bribe State Legislators And Install Magnus’s Son Lyman On The Railway Commission, The Farmers Decide To Form A Clandestine League Under The Leadership Of Their Most Prominent Member, Magnus Derrick. The Railroad Has Already Purchased Lyman’s Loyalty By Supporting His Campaign For Governor, Therefore Their Ultimate Plan Fails. By Refusing To Lower Freight Rates And By Remaining Silent When The Railway Sells The Wheat Farmers’ Land To Fictitious Buyers Acting On Behalf Of The P. And S.w., Lyman Betrays The League.

The P. And S.w. Fires Dyke, A Railroad Engineer, For Refusing To Accept A Pay Reduction, And He Invests All Of His Savings In A Small Hops Farm. But When The Railway Increases The Cost Of Shipping Hops, He Runs Into Financial Trouble, Descends Into Alcoholism, And Is Influenced By The Socialist Saloonkeeper Caraher. Dyke Receives A Life Sentence Before Robbing A Train And Killing One Of Its Operators.

Several Railroad Agents, Headed By Its Local Representative S. Behrman, Confiscate Annixter’s Ranch With The Intent To Evict Him While The Community Assembles For The Annual ‘jackrabbit Drive’ To Capture Rabbits From The Fields. When The Railway Agents Approach Magnus’ Ranch, Annixter, Magnus, And A Few Other League Members Meet Them Close To Hooven, A Farmer Who Works Magnus’ Land. They Argue, Which Results In A Shootout That Results In The Deaths Of Many Farmers, Including Hooven, Osterman, Annixter, And Harran Derrick (Magnus’s Son). Presley, Who Has Become More Anarchistic Under The Influence Of Caraher, Throws A Bomb Into S. Behrman’s Home After Seeing The Senseless Violence, But Behrman Survives The Blast Unharmed.

Magnus, A Morally Upright Member Of The Community, Discovers That His Bribery Of Officials Was Revealed In The Neighbourhood Newspaper As A Result Of The Gunfight. He Loses His Reputation In Addition To His Financial Ruin. The Daughters And Wife Of Hooven Are Compelled To Go To San Francisco, But Without Assistance, They Split Up And Fall Into Poverty. Mrs. Hooven Starves To Death, And Her Older Daughter Minna Is Forced Into Prostitution.

Presley Attends A Lavish Dinner At The Residence Of Cedarquist, A Wealthy Shipping Businessman Who Secured Presley’s Passage On A Ship Headed For India, While This Is Happening In San Francisco. The Wife Of Cedarquist Raises Money To Send A Ship Of Californian Wheat To India To Help With A Famine There After Falling In Love With Presley’s Socialist Poem “The Toilers” (Based On His Experiences In The San Joaquin Valley).

Magnus’s Farm Is Now Owned By S. Behrman, Who Sells The Wheat To Mrs. Cedarquist’s Famine Relief Initiative. But When He Travels To San Francisco To See The Wheat Being Loaded Onto The Ship, He Refuses To Bag It. As A Result, He Falls Into The Ship’s Hold And Is Crushed To Death By The Cascading Wheat. Presley Is On The Same Ship At The Book’s Conclusion, Sailing To India With The Wheat, And He Reflects On Vanamee’s Speculative Philosophical Idea That, Despite The Suffering Caused By The Wheat Farming, It Is Just A Little Component Of A Larger Cosmic Process That Ultimately Results In Good.

The Octopus: A Story Of California Reviews

My Edition, Which Was Reprinted In 1994 By Penguin Books, Has 656 Pages And Is Unabridged. I Could Not Put Down An Earlier Edition That I Read In 1980 Or Maybe In The Late 1970s. I Became So Emotionally Invested In The Characters And Furious At The Railroad’s Soulless Actions That I Steamed, Yelled, And Stomped. The Book Is Passionate And Captivating Despite Being Quite Long. Very Worthwhile Of Repeat Reading. The Wheat Represents The Struggle Of The Average Person (The Railway) Against Big Business. It Specifically Discusses The So-called Mussel Slough Tragedy Of 1880, In Which Farmers’ Land Was Defrauded And Taken By The Railway. It Is A Naturalistic And Didactic Novel About Farmers In The San Joaquin Valley Of Late 19th-century America, Farm Life, And Wheat Farmers. But Although Though It Mostly Focuses On The Plight Of The Farmers, There Are Scenes That Also Depict The Railroaders’ Point Of View. It Is A Magnificent Overview Of Life In California At That Time. A Renowned Collection Of American Fiction. The Edition I Own Has A Note On The Text Stating That It Is A Complete Copy And Is Based On The Second Printing Of The First American Edition From April 1901. Includes A 24-page Introduction Written By Historian Kevin Starr, Who Puts Everything In Context. It Is Possible To Interpret The Novel As A Persuasive Argument For Social Justice In The Vein Of Emile Zola And Other Realist Authors Since It Deals With The Denunciation Of Wickedness And The Assertion That Truth Will Triumph. So Much Of The Prose Was Written With The Intention Of Making The Reader Angry And Involved In Order To Create A Force For Justice Since The Novel Isn’t Meant To Be Entertaining But Rather As A Tool To Force Change On An Unfair Situation. It Is Seen As Anti-business In This Regard And Is Undoubtedly Despised By The Ultra-wealthy Who Think They Should Be Praised For Their Success. I Suspect That Some Organisations Have Banned The Book For The Same Reasons That The Grapes Of Wrath Was Banned: Because It Criticised California’s Corporate Agricultural Businesses And Growers.

This Was Cunningly Written To Appeal To A Certain Reading Audience, And It Was Wildly Successful In Its Day. You’ll Comprehend What You’re Reading More Clearly If You Keep It In Mind. The Majority Of Readers In Norris’ Time Resided East Of St. Louis, With Most Of Them Being New Yorkers. At The Time, New Yorkers Did Not Hold Californians In High Regard, So Reading About Californians Who Lacked Sophistication And A Moral Compass Made Them Feel Better. Additionally, The Victorian Novel Was A Popular Form Of Entertainment That Was Enjoyed By Everyone With A Basic Level Of Education Who Could Read And Had Some Spare Time (I.e., The Whole Middle Class). It Is A Bit Of A Potboiler By Today’s Standards, Much Too Long, And Filled With Derogatory Racial And Gender Stereotypes That Will Offend Everyone From Women To Hispanics To Indians. It Surprises Me (At Least) To Learn That San Francisco Was Known To Have Gay Leanings Even In The 1890s. It Was Cutting-edge Technology, And There Was No Denying That The West, With Its Mineral Wealth, International Port, And Modern Approach To Agriculture That Mostly Skipped The Family Farm Stage, Posed A Threat To Global Economic Dominance. Even Though Many Of These Events Were Disliked By New Yorkers, They Couldn’t Ignore Them. Men And Women Read This Book Equally In The Days Before Movies And Television, And Teenagers Would Sneak It Out Of Their Parents’ Rooms To Impress Their Friends And Be Appropriately Horrified And Shocked.

The King Of California, A Non-fiction Account Of Large-scale Cotton Farming In California’s San Joachin Valley From The Pre-depression Era To The Present, Is Where I First Learned About This Book. The King Makes Reference To The Extensive Jack Rabbit Hunts That Farmers And Residents Of Small Towns Participated In As Recreational And Social Activities, Culminating In A Large Picnic For Hundreds Of People On The Fields That Was Well Documented In The Octopus. The Main Story Is A Well-written Literary Tale Of The Original Wheat Farmers In Their Battle Against The Railroad, The Classic War Between Capital And Labour, From A Socialist Perspective, With The Evil Corporate Railroad As Capital, The Octopus, Destroying The Farmers And The Families Dependent Upon The Farmers (Although The Farmers Were Also Quite Successful Before They Were Ruined). It Gives A Good Account Of Their Daily Lives, The Lives Of Their Families And Employees, And Who Homesteaded The Lands That The Federal Government Had Given To The Railway In Exchange For A Nominal Fee. It Didn’t Go As Planned, With The Farmers Organising And Then Ineffectively Carrying Out Both A Political And Ultimately An Armed Struggle Against The Railway Agents Who Had The Backing Of The Law. Written From The Perspective Of The Early 1900s, I Hypothesise That It Had A Significant Influence On John Steinbeck Before He Wrote The Grapes Of Wrath, Which Has A Similar Theme. It Also Serves As A Prequel To The Later, Very Prosperous Cotton And Produce Farmers That Helped To Shape The Present-day Central Valley Of California. I Usually Prefer Non-fiction, But I Really Liked This Account Of Early California Agriculture And Political Conflict. I’m Eager To Buy Norris’s Follow-up Book, The Pit, Which Reportedly Tells Another Tale Of Wheat Trading In Chicago’s Commodities Market.

The First Book Of A Trilogy To Be Called “The Epic Of The Wheat” Was Supposed To Be Named “The Octopus.” The Third Installment, Tentatively Titled “The Wolf,” Was To Be Written By Frank Norris, Who Passed Away In 1902. He Had Not Yet Begun Writing The Second Installment, “The Pit,” Which He Was Supposed To Finish. The Story Of A Conflict Between The Local Wheat Growers And A Railway Company, Here Referred To As The Pacific And South-western Railroad, Is Told In The Novel, Which Is Set In The San Joaquin Valley Of California. Norris Was Inspired By The Mussel Slough Tragedy, A Real-life Incident That Had Taken Placed Some Twenty Years Earlier, Despite The Action Taking Place In The Late 1890s.

The Ranchers’ Main Complaints Against The Railroad Are Two-fold. The First Is That The Railway May Charge Them Exorbitant Rates For Transporting Their Produce Because Of Its Monopoly On Local Transportation. As A Result Of This Profiteering, One Major Character Becomes Bankrupt. The Second Complaint, Which Is Perhaps More Fundamental, Is About Land Ownership. The Railroad Company, Which Lured The Ranchers To The Area With Hazy Promises That They Would Eventually Be Able To Purchase It For $2.50 To $5 Per Acre, Leases A Large Portion Of The Land That The Ranchers Are Farming. However, The Company Breaks Its Promises And Sells The Land To Ranchers For Far Higher Prices Than They Can Afford. The Railroad’s Attempts To Profit From The Improvements That They Themselves Have Made And That Have Increased Land Values Particularly Infuriates The Ranchers. The Farmers Form A League To Resist The Railroad’s Incursions, But This Is Always Going To Be An Unfair Battle Given The Vast Financial Resources Available To Their Opponents. The Main Event Of The Book Is A Shootout Between Several Ranchers And Railway Agents That Is Based On What Happened In The Mussel Slough Tragedy.

Magnus Derrick, Annixter, Presley, And Vanamee Are The Four Major Characters Who Play Major Roles In The Book, Although There Isn’t A Single Protagonist. A Late-arriving Pioneer From California Who Arrived During The Gold Rush And Is Now The President Of The League Is An Elderly Man Named Magnus. His Character Degenerates During The Novel; Initially A Man Of Integrity And High Ideals, He Gives In To The Temptation To Fight The Railway Through Immoral Tactics, Such Bribery. The Personality Of Annixter, A Different Rancher, Changes In The Opposite Way; Initially A Self-centered And Haughty Young Man, He Softens And Develops Into A Kind And Kind-hearted Adult After Falling In Love And Marrying A Young Servant Girl. Presley, A Young Poet Who Understands The Plight Of The Farmers, Resembles The Author In Certain Ways. The Tragic Death Of Vanamee’s Fiancée Angele, Who Passed Away In Childbirth After Being Raped, Haunts Him. Vanamee Is A Close Friend Of Presley Who Is A Wanderer And Mystic. S. Behrman, A Banker Who Represents The Railroad, Is The Main Antagonist. (Like A Number Of Major Male Characters, Annixter, Presley And Vanamee Are Always Referred To By Their Surnames Alone; We Never Discover Their Christian Names).

Norris Was Influenced By European Naturalist Writers Like Zola And Saw The Conflicts Between The Railway And The Ranchers As The Clash Of Vast, Impersonal Forces, As Kevin Starr Points Out In His Introduction. The President Of The Railway Company, Shelgrim, Uses What May Be Referred To As Reverse Marxism To Try To Defend Himself In These Terms. Marx Believed That The Materialist Dialectic Would Inevitably Result In The Victory Of Socialism; Shelgrim Believed That It Would Inevitably Result In The Victory Of A More Effective Form Of Capitalism.

Shelgrim Is Not A Bad Person, Unlike The Corrupt Behrman; We Can See A Softer Side Of Him. However, He Is A Man With Blinkers On Who Cannot See The Suffering Brought On By The Unrestrained Capitalism He Defends. This Is Made Clear In The Last Chapter, When Norris Contrasts Mrs. Hooven And Her Two Daughters’ Plight On The City’s Streets With The Extravagant Lifestyle Of The Wealthy—cedarquist, A San Francisco Businessman And Shelgrim Associate, Is Hosting A Banquet. She Is The Widow Of A Little Farmer From Germany Who Was Killed In The Shooting.

The Story Is Told From The Perspective Of The Ranchers, Who Have Norris’ Deepest Sympathies Despite The Morally Dubious Tactics They Are Sometimes Forced To Use. Although Some Of Them Are Somewhat Successful Businessmen, They Are Still Very Much The “Little Men” In Comparison To The Very Wealthy Railway Corporation. If The Railway Were A Cold, Impersonal Force, It Would Be A Destructive Force. Norris Likens It To The “Octopus” That Gives The Book Its Name, But More Often He Compares It To A Mechanical Monster, “That Terror Of Steel And Steam,” Which Leaves “Blood And Destruction In Its Path.” These Words Are Taken From The Book’s Final Chapter, But They Recall A Moving Scene From The First Chapter, Where An Engine Indiscriminately Kills Vanamee’s Flock Of Sheep.

This Scene And A Few Others In The Book Reminded Me Of Thomas Hardy, Another Author From The Late Nineteenth Century. (A Scene When A Flock Of Sheep Is Slaughtered Is Also Included In The Early Section Of “Far From The Madding Crowd”). Similar To Norris, Hardy Also Wrote About Farming And The Battles That Farmers And Farmworkers Waged Against Impersonal Economic And Natural Forces. Those Potently Written Set-piece Scenes Describing The Events Of The Farmer’s Year—plowing, Harvesting, And The Rabbit-hunt—were Especially Hardyesque.

Norris Seems To Have Been A Christian Believer, In Contrast To The Religious Sceptic Zola, Which May Explain A Fundamental Philosophical Difference Between The Two Authors. Norris Ends His Book On A Note Of Somewhat Flimsy Optimism In Which The Growth Of The Wheat Is Used As A Symbol Of A Benevolent Providence, In Contrast To Zola, Who Had A Generally Pessimistic View Of Society. “All Things, Surely, Inevitably, Resistlessly Work Together For Good” Is The Book’s Last Line. The Grim Events That Norris Had Just Finished Recounting Did Not Really Fit With This Conclusion, And I Was Uncomfortably Reminded Of Dr. Pangloss From Voltaire. “All Is For The Best In The Best Of All Possible Worlds”

The Mystical Vanamee/angel Subplot, Which Does Not Really Fit In With Norris’ Main Themes, Is Another Weakness In The Book. But Overall, “The Octopus” Is A Book With Incredible Strength And Vision. In Addition To Zola And Hardy, A Third Author Who Was Born In California The Year Norris Died Came To Mind. Norris Might Be Seen As A Precursor To And An Influence On The John Steinbeck Of Novels Like “The Grapes Of Wrath” Because Of The Strength Of His Descriptive Writing, His Social Concerns, And His Sympathies With The Poor And Oppressed. His Sudden Death At The Young Age Of 32 Was A Great Loss For American Literature.

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