Frank Norris illustrates the
overwhelming greed of humans in his novel McTeague.
Our physical bodies are haunted by possessions and the desire to possess the
relics of this world. There are few more appropriate symbols of humanity’s
great avarice than gold. Material property, such as gold, becomes central to
the development of Norris’ message about the vanity of greed and humanity’s
nature to replace what was lost at all costs.
Gold, throughout human history, has
represented money and more importantly power. Gold is something everyone wants,
but very few possess, so its demand is extremely high. Characters like Trina
and Zerkow demonstrate this obsession with gold. Numerous examples show how the
two characters cling to their fixation on gold. This fascination only proves to
be their undoing near the end of the novel as each character attempts to
retrieve or replace what was lost. Zerkow marries Maria to fill that empty
place where the gold should be, and Trina becomes a miser, preferring squalid
conditions to losing more than she has of her wealth.
Even Trina represents a possession that
belongs to McTeague. McTeague takes her as his wife, and she considers herself
as belonging to him. The infatuation between the two in the beginning fades and
they settle into their roles as husband and wife, more like statues or objects
than two people deeply in love. As the couple slowly lose hold of their flat
and their accustomed possessions, so do their affections dwindle for each
other.
They take four major steps down as a
result of Trina being a terrible miser. They move from their wedding flat, to
the smaller place, to a room in Zerkow’s house, and then to nearly homeless and
separated. Greed ironically takes away many of the material possessions that
the McTeague couple enjoyed so much. At the height of her fetish Trina strips
down and lays naked with the five thousand dollars worth of gold pieces. During
this state of mania, she is murdered by her husband McTeague which is the
driving point and climax to Norris’ statement about the vanity of selfishness.
In spite of vast
material wealth, happiness inevitably seems to escape. Happiness and wealth are
ironically taken away by circumstance; appropriate for the naturalistic style
of novel. Zerkow murders Maria and fruitlessly drowns over his imagined gold.
Trina suffers severely before she is murdered by her husband in spite of all
her twenty dollar gold pieces. The golden greed was the root cause of these
misfortunes, but the reason they died was their obsession and addiction to the
gold. The same material possession that is supposed to purchase the necessities
and luxuries of life ironically took their life away.
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