Quite correctly, the emphasis in Norris criticism has been on Vandover and the Brute, McTeague, The Octopus and The Pit. The first two works are among our earliest naturalistic novels, and the two completed parts of the trilogy of the wheat reveal Norris's mind and art at their most mature and complex. The three novels that come toward the middle of his brief career have been either ignored or casually dismissed because of their obvious defects. Unlike his experimental or unconventional major works, these three narratives— Moran of the Lady Letty (1898), Blix (1899) and A Man's Woman (1900)— were written within popular formulas. All appeared originally in newspapers or magazines, and all are love stories set within the conventional molds of the novel of adventure, courtship and exploration. But despite the lesser importance and obvious weaknesses of these works, they deserve closer study than they have received. I will attempt to show that the three novels are a kind of trilogy, in that they deal with a similar theme. There are several reasons why it is helpful to think of the three works in this way. First, the theme itself— that of the correct gender roles for man and woman— is developed clearly and forcefully in these novels, and therefore an understanding of it will throw light on its frequent appearance elsewhere in Norris's fiction. Moreover, this theme is closely related to Norris's beliefs concerning the ethical nature of man, and his treatment of it in these three novels marks one stage in his progressive exploration and dramatization of his ethical beliefs. Lastly, to conceive of the novels as unified by one theme despite their distinct plots, settings and characters is to suggest the trial or apprentice role of this trilogy in relation to the similar though more successful trilogy that was to follow.

As his titles suggest, Norris's focus in each of the novels was on its chief female character, and, more particularly, on her role in aiding the central male character achieve a correct masculinity. Within this process the woman also changes, though Norris above all emphasizes her function in the transformation of the male. In Moran of the Lady Letty Ross Wilbur is initially an attender of teas and yachting parties, a man whose male force and gravity have been dulled by the feminine world of social convention and affectation.