A Fable of the Anthropocene: The Disturbing Naturalist Humanity in Frank Norris's The Octopus.

With respect to the Vanamee-Angéle subplot, Zena Meadowsong presents a stimulating analysis of the summoning of Angéle in that the plot is a "parody of "natural" law of supply and demand" because Angéle's daughter is not miraculously summoned but is the product of male violence - her mother's rape - responding to the male demand: Vanamee's desperate hope (32). Even though he pays attention only to the tangible sphere of reality and dares to ignore the entangled issues such as the decay of the Los Muertos ranchers, the death of the railroad capitalist in the chute, and the exportation of wheat to India under the famine, without taking notice of Mrs. Hooven's death from hunger in the street, Vanamee's irresponsible attitude is crucial to understanding why Norris applies the romance/reality dichotomy to Vanamee's plot. Finally, I demonstrate that Norris's genre theory applied to Vanamee's plot endorses Vanamee's complex desire to fulfill his demand while avoiding individual responsibility for his intentions. [Extracted from the article]