McTeague: A Story of San Francisco

For a time the McTeagues appear to be rising despite the forces working against them. Under Trina’s guidance, McTeague leaves behind “the stupid animal life to which he had been accustomed” (190). His dress and manners improve, and instead of napping on Sundays, he walks with Trina in the park or goes with her to the art gallery. He also “observe[s] the broader, larger interests of life” (191), reading newspapers and developing political opinions. He begins “to have ambitions” and to imagine “something better,” like a family (191). In one of the book’s only unironically cheerful scenes, their apartment is described as pleasant and idyllic, with Trina “fresh as if from a bath, and singing at her work” as she cleans the kitchen, the “smell of coffee” in the air and “the morning sun” creating “a note of gayety that was not to be resisted” (259). One may be lulled into the belief that the McTeagues have achieved true happiness after all.

However, there is evidence even in this idyllic description that ominous forces are at work. Trina’s love for McTeague is not inspired by “any of those noble and generous qualities that inspire affection” but rather by her having “given herself to him” and merging “her individuality into his” (183). Her dedication to him comes only after months of misery and regret, during which she was repulsed by him, fearing she “would sink” to his level (185). McTeague himself is “long past” feeling any passion for Trina, enjoying her only for her familiarity and for her tending to his “little animal comforts” (190). Just as “[t]he little life on Polk Street […] ran on monotonously in its accustomed grooves” (198), the McTeagues are driven by thoughtless adherence to routine. The pleasure they find in their life together is inspired not by genuine love for each other but by a sense of inevitability.

This inevitability is evident nowhere more clearly than in Trina’s hoarding. Though at first her economy with money appears quaint and harmless, she is ruled by her miserliness, and her inability to control her actions helps lead to the McTeagues’ ultimate downfall. Early in their marriage Trina’s economy is described as “a passion” for “sav[ing] money” (188). As time goes on, however, it becomes clear that Trina’s hoarding is not a passion but a compulsion. She is driven by an “instinct of hoarding” that compels her behavior and overpowers her goodness. She lies to McTeague over how much she has saved and insists the money is all hers. She refuses to send money to her mother or to help McTeague pay $35 in rent, despite feeling guilty for doing her “old bear” an “injustice” (208). Trina is “troubled” but acknowledges that she “can’t help it,” that it is “stronger” than she is (210). In Naturalist literature an extraordinary event triggers the emergence of people’s basest instincts and disrupts ordinary lives. Trina’s acknowledgement that she was never this stingy” before winning the lottery shows this event to be that circumstance.

Trina’s winning the lottery triggers a chain of events that leads to the characters’ downfall. Trina’s uncontrollable instinct inspires her to move to a small dirty room in the back of the building. This disgusts McTeague, who upon seeing their new room tells her, “You make me sick” (271). McTeague’s frustration leads to the awakening of his instinct to drink. Throughout the novel McTeague has resisted drinking whiskey because it doesn’t “agree” with him. Now, with nothing to lose and nothing else to do, he succumbs to the compulsion and becomes like his father, “an irresponsible animal, a beast, a brute, crazy with alcohol” (2).

The beginnings of decline are evident in secondary characters, as well, showing the far-reaching ripple effects of Trina’s lottery win. Zerkow, jealous of Trina’s win, is obsessed with the idea that Maria is hiding her golden service from him and begins to threaten her life. Marcus, who is “ready to fight” without knowing “whom” or “why” (245), finds in McTeague an outlet for his simmering rage. His blaming McTeague for his misery culminates in his ultimate act of destruction: reporting McTeague for practicing without a license. Even the failure of Mr. Sieppe’s upholstery business suggests an inevitable slide downward.

McTeague and Marcus’s fight in the park contains many of the hallmarks of Naturalism. When Marcus bites McTeague’s ear, “[t]he brute” in McTeague that “lay so close to the surface leaped instantly to life” (234). McTeague unleashes “the hideous yelling of a hurt beast, the squealing of a wounded elephant” (234). The sound is “nothing articulate” and “no longer human” but “rather an echo from the jungle” (234). In his animal fury, he throws Marcus, breaking his arm; he becomes himself again as “his bestial fury lapsed by degrees,” and he gazes “stupidly about him” (236), not understanding what has happened. McTeague is driven by an “evil mania” (234) he does not understand and cannot control. Like Trina, who despite her regret is unable to give money to her loved ones, McTeague is ruled by a base inner drive that overpowers his better self.

The closeness of humans and animals is made even more remarkable by the fact that Marcus’s Irish setter and the Scotch collie are less inclined to act on base violent instincts than the humans they represent. Finally meeting face-to-face after months of growling at each other, these dogs merely circle each other and, “with all the dignity of monarchs” (217), retreat from each other in a kind of wordless truce. What’s more, observers are disappointed, feeling the truce to be anticlimactic. Marcus even claims that if his dog “won’t fight he won’t eat” (219), intending to goad him into violence. The dogs’ hatred for each other has foreshadowed the decline in McTeague and Marcus’s own relationship, and ironically, the animals behave with more restraint than the humans.

The smallness of humans is represented in the solemn scenes in which Trina and McTeague sell their belongings. Trina is devastated to sell the items she purchased before her marriage; as she organizes her kitchen things, she recalls the happy times she spent there, every utensil feeling like “an old friend” (274). However, these items are meaningless to the buyers who mock her tastes. While the sale is agony to Trina, it is “a fête, a veritable holiday” for those who attend (274). While Trina laments her losses in Miss Baker’s room, people walk blithely among her belongings, enjoying “the fun” and “making jokes” (280) about the Nottingham lace curtains Trina loved. That these buyers mock these items as being old-fashioned—one buyer exclaims that no one “thinks of buying Nottingham lace now-a-days” (280)—suggests the quick passage of time and the insignificance of what we currently hold dear. Already, the times have moved on without the McTeagues.

This sense of insignificance is reinforced at the end of the sale when the only item remaining is Trina’s wedding bouquet, “a melancholy relic of a vanished happiness” (283). The one “thing that nobody wanted” (283), the bouquet represents how all that has happened to the McTeagues in their apartment is meaningless. With all their belongings gone, their life in the apartment has come to nothing. The fact that all remnants of their life in the apartment could vanish in an afternoon shows the fleeting nature of human life.

Once again, this minimization is represented by quotation marks, which show the superficiality of the objects they describe. McTeague and Trina walk “down town” (195); Trina watches as McTeague treats his “patient” (216). At the picnic, Marcus wears a “tie,” which he sees as “the height of elegance” (226). With an inherent sense of their own smallness, characters resist this minimization. Marcus, at the picnic, orders a crème Yvette “to astonish the others” (227); later, in response to the Other Dentist’s offer to buy his golden tooth, McTeague asserts, “You can’t make small of me” (278). Though undoubtedly unaware of his motivation—he is a man who “never went to the bottom of things” (189)—McTeague resents the Other Dentist’s profiting off his subordination, and he clings to his symbol of wealth and prestige as his status becomes less secure.

It is notable that McTeague refuses to sell his canary cage and his concertina, the two items that represent his differentiation from animals. McTeague is one of the few characters whose behavior is not driven by his yearning for money; in fact, he is generous, insisting to Trina that they send money to her mother and never questioning sharing his earnings with Trina. While obsession with money is a human drive, McTeague is driven by animal urges. As their decline gains speed, McTeague’s animal instincts begin emerging, suggesting it is only the tenuous restraints of society that keep these forces at bay. Despite the signs of the barrier breaking, McTeague’s adamant clinging to his concertina and his canary show that he is still more man than animal, for now.