McTeague by Frank Norris

Frank Norris died a young man, 32 if I remember correctly, but he left behind some memorable works, McTeague included.  Working in the tradition of American Naturalism, Norris created a work that was meant to reflect true aspects of the world and human nature, to be more real than realism.  This usually meant highlighting darker aspects of human nature and the social constraints that influence behavior.  The character McTeague is a hulking idiot-man who practices unlicensed dentistry in turn-of-the-century California.  His life and the lives of all around him are taken over with greed and envy.  Although there are a lot of poorly drawn characters and stereotypes in the novel, Norris does get to something fundamental about poverty in America.  His characters struggle to get by but are constantly thwarted.
Like others writing in the naturalistic vein, Norris wants to reveal more than just the pettiness of humanity, but to show the deterministic systems that work behind human desire and shape action.  The apartment flat where the primary characters live is a microcosm of this system.  Each character has his or her own defined desires and tendencies.  Even though each of them wants to act according to his or her own desires, sense of duty, etc., each of them is bound by their relationships to one another, their current positions in life, and their own limitations.  This is all meant to reflect the idea that, while we may have freedom of movement and individual agency, we are still hemmed in by the systems that are around us.  The strength of McTeague lies in Norris showing us that we are bound into these systems even when we work to create them.  McTeague's wife Trina wins a lottery for $5,000 which should set the two of them up in the early years of their marriage and provide them an ample buffer against the troubles they will face.  But winning the lottery propels Trina into a spiral of avarice in which she would prefer to live in penury and try to live on her meager earnings rather than shrink the windfall.  Prior to winning the lottery, Trina had not been avaricious because riches were abstract and money meant less.  McTeague likewise becomes obsessed with the winnings as Trina holds out on him, forcing them to live in ever-worse conditions until he eventually beats her to death to steal the money.
By the end of the novel the money is lost in Death Valley through a series of mis-adventures and all of the principal characters are dead.  To Norris, the steady unraveling of the good before death is all but inevitable.  McTeague, Trina, and the other characters find themselves within a socio-political web that existed before them but which they participate in and help to shape.  Norris and other naturalists do not write this way to blame the characters for their own suffering, but to show what they see as the inevitability of defeat and suffering.
McTeague appeals to the pessimist and cynic in me.  It appeals to the part of me that believes that it is possible to either succeed or fail through sheer luck rather than through any personal efforts.