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Chapter 19
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in McTeague, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed and Self-Destruction
Naturalism
Gender Stereotypes
Class Struggle
Isolation vs. Connection
Summary
Analysis
Following a deep and instinctual drive, McTeague returns to the Big Dipper Mine, where he worked before pursuing a career in dentistry. He finds immense joy in returning to the mining life he left behind when his mother sent him away with the traveling dentist. The mountain calls to McTeague and seems to reflect his simplistic nature. Briefly, McTeague gets a job at the mine once again, though he has to lie about his identity. McTeague thinks about how the drills in the mine are like cruder and bigger versions of the drills he used in his dentistry practice.
With McTeague’s return to the Big Dipper Mine, his life comes full circle. The mining life, with its physicality and lack of sophistication, suits McTeague’s basic nature and provides a sense of fulfillment he did not find in dentistry. However, he cannot completely leave his recent past behind as he finds himself comparing the mining drills to the drills he used in his dental practice.
Themes
One night, not long after he starts working at the mine, McTeague wakes up because he feels a strange sensation he cannot define. Although he finds nothing upon searching, he remains on edge, constantly anticipating danger. Feeling that something is wrong, McTeague decides to pack up his tings and leave. Two days later, the police arrive from San Francisco to arrest him for Trina’s murder, but he is nowhere to be found.
McTeague’s instinctual feeling of danger further suggests his return to a more primal version of himself. A part of him that he does not understand tells him that he needs to leave, so he does so without thinking too much about it. Although McTeague’s base impulses always drove him, they grow particularly strong once he leaves civilization.
Themes
