Norris's Use of Sources in The Pit

W THEN FRANK NORRIS came to Chicago in I9OI in order to gather background material for his novel dealing with grain speculation, he picked up more than the jargon of brokerage and the atmosphere of LaSalle Street which were to give the required accurate, realistic finish to his tale: he found the basic action for The Pit. Three years earlier, a bold attempt to corner the world's wheat market had come close to succeeding, and stories about the coup, executed by young Joseph Leiter, were still current in Chicago financial circles. For Norris's purposes, here was an almost perfect incident. What could better illustrate the concept of Wheat as Force than the story of one man battling the very earth, only to be eventually overcome by gigantic world-force, that colossal billow, Nourisher of the Nations? A study of the central action of The Pit in relation to its counterpart in real life illustrates Norris at work, selecting, rejecting, modifying, and otherwise transmuting fact into fiction. This paper will indicate by specific examples the principles upon which he seems to have operated in the writing of his last novel, the second in his uncompleted trilogy of the epic of the wheat. The story of Curtis Jadwin's attempt to corner the market must have reminded its first readers of what they had been reading in their newspapers only a few years earlier. A reader with an especially sharp memory for dates might also have observed that the length of the Bull careers of both Jadwin and Leiter was the same: both began to buy wheat in April, I897, and both corners collapsed on the same date, Monday, June I3, i898.' It is apparent that the fictional account follows, in its large outlines, the actual sequence of 1The year I898 is reconstructed from scattered events in the action of the novel (although Norris carefully cites months, he omits mention of any specific year). However, at one point the affair is referred to as having occurred in I878, and at another point as having occurred twenty years earlier. Also, when Jadwin makes a cheating former partner repay Hargus with 6 per cent interest, the amount is that which would have accrued over a twenty-year period

American and British Literature Analysis · Computer Science · History

• The market and the masses

  Open Access•K B Hansen•Finance and Society•2022

  Añadir item