Comparing Mcteague And The Alienation Of Labor

McTeague by Frank Norris and “The Alienation of Labor” by Karl Marx both bring up issues of people reverting to their ‘animal’ selves. Marx and Norris both demonstrate these animal selves to be something to avoid, but for different reasons – McTeague’s animal instinct are intrinsic and immoral on their own, and Marx thinks that these animal functions become enjoyable due to outside forces.

One of Marx’s main points is that, because workers do not own their work (or the things that they produce while they are working), they hate their work. As a result, “the human being (the laborer) does not feel himself to be free except in his animal functions: eating, drinking, and reproducing…and in his human functions he is no more than an animal” (Marx

For instance, Trina attempts to direct McTeague away from his base animal comforts: “The little animal comforts which for him constituted the enjoyment of life were ministered to at every turn, or when they were interfered with--as in the case of his Sunday afternoon's nap and beer--some agreeable substitute was found” (Norris 150). Trina takes McTeague’s “animal comforts” away from him, but in a strategic way that does not upset him. Also, it is important to note that Trina does not lift McTeague out of his animal functions – she merely provides new, fancier ones. The narrator later states, “he sadly missed and regretted all those little animal comforts which in the old prosperous life Trina had managed to find for him” (Norris 224). This shows that these animal comforts – or functions – are not limited to a specific class; or perhaps that, because Trina and McTeague used to be of the working class, they will always be a part of that class in how they act. Regardless, the idea of enjoyable animal functions not being attached to any specific class diverges from Marx – these animal functions, in Marx’s view, are most enjoyable to those who are estranged from their labor – in other words, the working