Kenneth Lay once said “we had realized the American Dream and were living a very expensive lifestyle, the type of lifestyle where it is difficult to turn off the spigot. ” Kenneth Lay was the CEO of Enron; he was caught with stealing millions of dollars from the company. He was trying to live the American Dream, and he would stop at nothing to reach it. Like many of the characters in Frank Norris’ McTeague, they too want money to be able to live the American Dream.
Because once you get the fortune, you will live happily ever with no worries. So they say.In McTeague, Trina’s love for money drives her crazy, Zerkow ends up killing Maria because of her greed, and Marcus goes on a frantic man hunt to find McTeague and steal his money. In the end, their greed drives all of them to their fallouts. At the beginning of the book McTeague everything seems to be fine and dandy, until Trina and McTeague get married. Things take a turn for the worst.
Trina’s uncle, Uncle Oelbermann, gives the couple a gift of five thousand dollars. This is when Trina starts to become obsessed with money and it will eventually drive her crazy.She soon becomes so obsessed that she starts hiding all of her extra earnings from McTeague. She refuses to buy a house because she knows that they can find one that is way cheaper.
She refuses to buy gloves to protect her hands from the wood carving she does because she feels she does not need them. But later on she finds out that she get lead poisoning from the paint because she had a cut and ends up losing two fingers all because of her greed and the need to feel like she is on top.It even goes so far the she cleans the money and does not want to accept anything that looks dirty and she also plays with the money and even lays in the bed naked with the money. In a way it is like she is thanking the money for giving her what she has. Even if it is not the best of things, it still got her what she has today and some extra spending money to get nice looking things. Then there is McTeague, a tall lumber jack looking man, who likes to eat and drink and does not care about anything at all really.
But one thing he does care about is money.Throughout the book we see McTeague change into a man of fine things and always being happy. But behind closed doors things are very different; he is constantly beating and nagging Trina for extra money she has been hiding to go to the bar so he can drink the beer that she has not been letting him drink or to even get some food. But she does not budge and this infuriates McTeague to the point where he ends up killing her and taking all of her money. He is now able to live the life that he has always wanted to live, a life of his own without any worries.Zerkow always wanted a life without any worries, so when Maria told him the story about the gold plate he knew that he had found a way to settle all those worries.
He would find the gold plates and make a fortune off of them. His life would be set. But when Maria lost her baby and in ways became sane again she had no idea what Zerkow was walking about. This did not make him too happy, he ends up killing Maria by slitting her throat and leaving her on the porch for Trina to find her.
Then when Zerkow is found he has drowned in the river with a bunch of rusted up pans that he thought was the gold plate.He was trying to reach the goal of living the American Dream. The goal of reaching the American Dream is what causes everyone in McTeague to go crazy and end up dying because of their drive to always be on top. The need to feel above everyone brings a lot of violence as to who can be better than the other. David Abrahamsen once said “the American Dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country them not only a living but a good living. ”
