How Money Affects the Characters - Part 2: Major Characters

In Part One we looked at how minor characters are affected by Trina's lottery win. In Part Two we will look at how the major characters are affected.

Marcus
Response to the Lottery:
Poor Marcus laments the fact that McTeague got his girl. Is that because his heart is broken? Well, it may be broken, but it certainly isn't broken over Trina. Marcus laments McTeague's good fortune in coming into such a sum of money.

Use for Money:
Fame certainly comes to mind. I don't doubt that Marcus' ideas for the money are quite more ambitious than McTeague's. For Marcus, money is a means to an end. Money brings power. With money, perhaps Marcus could fund a political campaign for some form of office.

The Outcome:
Marcus' obsession with the $5,000 dollars leads to his death in, well, Death Valley. His obsession with money brings about his very violent death. As we will see, this is a recurring outcome.

McTeague
Response to the Lottery:
The dentist's response to Trina's fortune is extremely compulsive. In fact, he is the fool that the lottery agent talks about. McTeague thinks the best thing to do with the new found cash is to spend it on more lottery tickets. This is exactly the level of intelligent thought we expect from McTeague.

Use of Money:
McTeague's mindset when it comes to money is that which has been passed on to him from his father. Money is to be spent as fast, if not faster than it is made. It is to be spent on good food, drink, and anything else that temporarily satisfies the body. It can be spent to make new friends. It is not a thing to be saved for large expenditures. McTeague has the miner's mindset when it comes to spending. He lives paycheck to paycheck without remorse for the foolish purchases he makes. If there were credit cards in the last decade of the nineteenth century, McTeague would have maxed them all out and accrued incredible amounts of interest.

The Outcome:
McTeague and Trina's warring views on money lead to a great divide in their relationship. The divide is gradual, but as Trina denies McTeague even small amounts of money to indulge his habits, he becomes resentful. McTeague kills both Trina and Marcus over the lottery money. By the end of the novel he is a thief, a murderer, and is facing certain death.

Trina
Response to winning the lottery:
Trina's initial response to winning the lottery seems both logical and practical. Upon reading her initial response, I inwardly praised her plan to invest the money and live off the interest. It seems like the reasonable thing to do. At the beginning, the winning of the money affects Trina little. However, a seed is planted. In her determination to not spend the five thousand, she has opened herself toward a very dangerous desire: money for money's sake.

Use of Money:
Trina is very unlike the other characters in her idea of the use of money. At first she seems very practical. However, the money grows from a useful thing to an obsession. It is not long before she collects money for the sake of money itself. Trina's lust for gold is stronger than all other characters because it really is the gold itself that she loves. She does not care what she can buy with that gold. She only wants it to have and hold. She counts it, she polishes it, she gazes at it, finds pleasure in it, and in one of the more bizarre episodes of the book, even sleeps upon her bed of gold. She is like the dragons of mythology stories, gathering her horde into a bed of coins. Do not attempt to take a coin, or you will anger the beast.

The Outcome:
Trina deteriorates the moment she wins the lottery. While the greed of the others is apparent from the beginning, the money distorts her like a cancer. At first, its effects are small, she becomes a bit more stingy, one would still say wise with her money. At the end, the money has overtaken her. She lives for it. She no longer cleans the house. Trina, who once was beautiful, no longer takes care of herself. When she loses her fingers, she does not lament for the loss of that faculty, but for the loss of her income. Her love of money distances herself from her husband, destroying her marriage and bringing about her death.

And there you have it. A story like this should really makes you think twice about wanting riches. And remember, the next time you see that satchel of money on the side of the road, remember. If you touch it, you will die.

WC: 794