The Octopus: A Story of California

The second book’s first chapter initiates one of Norris’s thematic tensions: The superficiality of the city balances against the genuine realities of the ranchers’ lives in the countryside. Lyman and Harran, relative to one another, exemplify that tension. Lyman, whose ambition leads him to assume the actual title of his father’s moniker, finds his place within the city and its politics—and is made wholly culpable in his ambitions after Norris gives him the most encompassing and clear vision of the Railroad and what it is; and Harran, whose interests include only the ranch, the fairness of the rates, and his myopic view of what the Railroad is (only as it relates to him).

Magnus’s fixation on Cedarquist’s idea of shipping wheat to India reveals his true nature as a gambler and former miner. It shakes him loose from the ideological position he is increasingly occupying, that is, the figure of the land, one whose best interests are natural to the land and his connection with it. His cynical, greed-based approach aligns with the motivations of the Railroad, complicating the moral perspective of the novel.

Amidst the hypocrisy of throwing lunches and teas to raise funds to combat famine, Presley finds that his subject is not the vast ideology of the frontier but the individuality of social justice. These are the first indications of Presley’s socialistic turn, and they reflect contemporary concerns with the labor struggles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the Socialist-Anarchist party fought to gain a footing in society. Neither Presley nor Caraher faces direct retribution for their socialistic leanings, suggesting a degree of local sympathy for the political philosophies at least.

The second chapter reveals the divestment of a different kind of individualism as Annixter realizes his love for Hilma. The chapter details Annixter’s process toward love: He begins with his immediate reaction, which is true to his former self, but he moves toward the blooming of his new self—his love for Hilma—which symbolically correlates with the burgeoning new wheat. The individualism that Annixter sheds is a base individualism, that is, an unimaginative self-interest. As the reality of love dawns on him, his imagination expands; his world now recognizes other persons for their own sake and not for how they can serve his needs. It is a kind of rebirth. As the awakening force in Annixter’s life, Hilma again emerges as the transformative element, the mother element. Because Annixter’s transformation is salvific, Hilma also becomes a savior figure.

This salvation through shedding individualism is juxtaposed with Dyke’s insistence on individualism, his trust in the fundamental fairness of the Railroad, which leads to his ruin. The farmers, joined in the League, ponder Dyke and consider “the ruin of an individual” (359). Only after witnessing the fate of the individual, and finding Hilma gone and himself alone, can Annixter move toward love: “The little seed, long since planted, gathering strength quietly, had at last germinated” (368).

The third chapter reaches into the ethereal aspects of the fecund land. Presley’s successful completion of “The Toilers” corresponds to one of the novel’s most emphatic symbols: Vanamee’s resurrection of Angéle. Norris gives Angéle’s resurgence a deliberate ambiguity, suggesting that the girl may be Angéle’s daughter. The idea of her daughter is analogous to the successive generations of wheat that Angéle and her daughter embody; this again emphasizes wheat as the primary symbol for the life force in the universe.