The Octopus: A Story of California

The Naturalist philosophy, though fragmented, is particularly suited to the literary exploration of a seemingly fated historical incident. First propounded by the French novelist Émile Zola, Naturalism usually involves the idea that unconscious motivations, influenced by social and environmental factors, lead people toward their inevitable ends. As such, the Mussel Slough Tragedy’s impression of determinism—that is, its grimly precise sequence of events and their catastrophic conclusion—naturally appealed to Norris. The tragedy supplied a proving ground for a literary philosophy proposing characters’ unavoidable ruination. At the same time, Norris’s determinism is decentralized; Where one character’s fate is clinched by their own unconscious appetites, another’s fate hinges on others’ motivations. Most often, though, fateful determinants’ loci are mixed. For example, while the Railroad is the novel’s supreme and despotic arbiter, the characters’ own primal impulses—lust, fear, pride, greed—have catalyzing power. Each character is a variation of the theme.

Naturalism, which draws from evolutionary models resembling Social Darwinism, posits that at the core of every human is a profoundly motivating base animalism to which anyone can revert. Annixter’s character is the most direct bodily representation of these urges. Although educated as a civil engineer, and clearly at home in the higher sphere of the intellect, he is undermined by seemingly inexplicable stomach issues (he clings comically to some sense of control by insisting upon his own cure, prunes, though they are inefficacious). His personality, both angrily bitter and kindly forthcoming, bounces between polarities: While he “pretend[s] to be a woman-hater” (27), he single-mindedly pursues Hilma; nevertheless, each interaction with her is clouded by his ignorance of his motivations. Norris suggests the core of Annixter’s initial attraction to Hilma lies in her emulation of “a healthy, vigorous animal life” (82) and “a vibrant note of gayety, of exuberant animal life” (166). Annixter eventually forces himself upon her, responding to urges he cannot understand, and later, when he faces his jealousy and emerging love, he is shaken to his core: “All the lower nature of the man, ignorant of women, racked at one and the same time with enmity and desire, roused itself like a hideous and abominable beast” (233).

Dyke’s story arc is typical of Naturalist characters, in that his fall from the early grace of his burgeoning hops farm is driven by the circumstance and philosophy of others, and it is only later that his own atavistic core shows itself. Dyke’s doting upon his daughter (which “made of his little girl a celebrity throughout Bonneville” [343]) and his optimism about hops farming suggest his idealism—an idealism he cannot or will not see past. This leaves him unable to detect others’ baser motivations, however, and he is thus utterly overwhelmed (and his temperance derailed) when the Railroad changes its rates. Likewise, he does not suspect inculcation by Caraher, who convinces him to rob a train and kill one of its operators. Hounded by posses and inescapably cornered, Dyke reverts to animalism. As he fights his captors, the narration describes him: “panting, rolling his eyes, his clothes torn from his body, bleeding, dripping with sweat, a terrible figure, nearly free” (486).

Within the Naturalistic frame, the novel presents greed as a prominent and insidious human drive that corrupts or destroys all who are subject to it. Minna Hooven is an indirect victim of the Railroad’s greed. Like the ranchers, her character charts a course from happiness to sadness. Such an arc is a defining feature of tragedy, but, unlike the ranchers—and carving out a tragic domain far surpassing that of the ranchers—Minna plays no part in her own undoing. She is originally presented as a small-town beauty who captivates her neighbors: “a very pretty girl, whose love affairs were continually the talk of all Los Muertos” (15). She enjoys her popularity at Annixter’s barn dance, and Presley more than once ponders her and her future (374, 491), once commenting that Minna will flourish should she stay in the San Joaquin Valley, though she “would find it pretty easy to go wrong […] in the city” (492). In retrospect, the remark is clear foreshadowing that exudes a Naturalistic sense of inevitable decay, and this inevitability is precisely what plays out as Minna, separated from her family and having spent the last of her money, falls into sex work in a desperate bid to survive. The scenario highlights the characters’ thematic lack of agency: As a measure of survival, her compelled undertaking of sex work is not truly Minna’s choice, and the sex is not truly consensual. This dynamic speaks to an element of rape in the Railroad’s aggression and entitlement. When Presley next encounters Minna, she plainly articulates her situation—not only as a casualty of the Railroad but as a woman deprived of financial security: “I’ve gone to hell,” she says, “It was either that or starvation” (588).

While the Railroad’s duplicity and violating domination are intuitively attributable to greed, Norris is judicious enough to invest the ranchers, the ostensible “heroes” of the story, with this same vice. This added complicating moral dimension demands scrutiny of ranchers’ culpability in the grand scheme of the narrative.

Magnus Derrick presents the most prominent example of greed-based moral corruption. Unable to maintain his self-delusions of unimpeachable moral standing, Magnus sees his reputation picked apart by the cascading consequences of his decisions. While he is complicit in the bribery meant to secure the Railroad commissioners, he convinces himself that it is a single lapse and conducted for a cause. His moral rupture, however, becomes increasingly visible to others—including Presley, who witnesses Magnus’s dual nature when the man speaks of potential profits. Presley muses that rarely Magnus “would betray the presence of a sub-nature of recklessness, inconsistent, all at variance with his creeds and tenets” (298). Magnus’s base instincts are those of a gambler, and he takes escalating risks to protect his reputation and accrue money. The gambling sets into motion his ultimate demise: When his bribery leaves him vulnerable to Genslinger’s blackmail, he is forced to entirely compromise his morals to preserve his moral veneer. When all his back-dealing comes to light, he is abandoned by his community and financially ruined, having lost one son and forsaken another. He is left to stare disconsolately into a mirror “that for so many years reflected the painted faces of soubrettes” (560), unable to justify his choices or even recognize himself.

While much of the novel portrays the universe’s unseen forces as a mechanistic terror, Norris curiously breaks from Naturalistic bleakness with his three main characters: Annixter recognizes and accepts the drives that upset his former way of being; Vanamee gains a visceral sense of the forces driving the natural world; and Presley finds a comprehensive perspective on the forces at work. In each case, however, the author still apportions to the characters’ enlightenment a terrible cost: Annixter is felled soon after achieving domestic bliss, Vanamee gains his insight only after losing his love, and Presley is forced to witness the bloody events at Hooven’s farm and its after-effects with certain knowledge that he has failed completely in his attempts to help.