Frank Norris -- Short Bio

Jacqueline Procter
Journal # 26
March 21, 2008
Frank Norris

Quote:
During his short career, his powerful works addressed the coming of age of the diverse classes of the modern United States and warned of the growing threat of monopolies and systematic urban poverty.

Summary:
Norris predicted the wide gulf between the very wealthy and the poor urban city dwellers, due to the rising power of a monopolistic society.

Response:
How tragic that such a brilliant man had to die too soon. Although I don’t think his story Fantaisie Printaniere is humorous, there can be a sliver of humor in the absurdities of certain situations – I guess the human psyche tends to look for humor in these situations that may be too difficult to deal with, but mostly these situations are just pathetic – like in this story – domestic violence. Like Twain, he was clever in presenting a social concern in a humorous fashion. I suppose there was a lot of domestic abuse that men perpetrated against women on a regular basis, it was common, and he speaks about the struggles of daily existence for the common woman/man.
Most people living in poverty don’t have a formal education so his audience was not geared toward these people but those of the moneyed class in an attempt to shed light on the poor’s situation.

In a very short time, after his death, his dire predictions regarding this extreme poverty of the lower class, and the huge rift between classes would reach gigantic proportions with the market crash, and the ensuing depression across the country. I will never forget those now famous pictures I saw in 5th or 6th grade social studies of all those poor people living in the region known as the dust bowl, (I think the photographer is Dorthea Lange) and the look of desperation on their faces. Very moving photographs!

Since being educated about the plight of Native Americans I wonder how this event affected them, although they were already living in barren land, as most of the reservations aren’t lush verdant oases. The Cherokee specifically weren’t acclimated to this desert like landscape. How did Native Americans protect themselves during all those dust storms? Which of course, was due to the white man's raping and not replenishing the earth.