McTeague Summary

McTeague works as a dentist on Polk Street in San Francisco. He is a violent and unintelligent man who never received formal training and often pulls his clients’ teeth out with his fingers. McTeague is best friends with Marcus Schouler, a veterinary assistant who lives in his building. Marcus brings his cousin, Trina, to McTeague after she breaks a tooth. While McTeague is fixing Trina’s tooth, he falls in love with her and asks her to marry him. However, Trina rejects him. Marcus, who is also courting Trina, learns of McTeague’s romantic interest and decides to step down. Then, he introduces McTeague to Trina’s family, the Sieppes, and helps him woo Trina. Before long, Trina falls in love with McTeague, as well, and it seems likely that they will be married. However, before this marriage can occur, Trina wins $5,000 in the lottery. Everyone is overjoyed with Trina’s luck—except Marcus, who is jealous and angry at himself for allowing McTeague to pursue Trina.

Before long, Marcus’s relationship with McTeague falls apart. The two men stop talking because Marcus avoids McTeague, and when McTeague tries to set things right, Marcus throws a knife at him. After the incident with the knife, McTeague largely avoids Marcus. Instead, he focuses on his relationship with Trina. Both Trina and the Sieppes like McTeague, though Trina remains conflicted on whether she should marry him. Ultimately, Trina decides to marry McTeague because she enjoys his oppressive strength and feels herself submitting to him whenever she is in his arms.

As Trina and McTeague prepare for their wedding, the Sieppes prepare to move to Los Angeles, where they hope to start a new business. There is also some talk that Marcus will go with them and buy a ranch. Leading up to the wedding, Mrs. Sieppe forces Marcus and McTeague to shake hands and make up. Although McTeague acts friendly toward Marcus again, he still will not make Marcus his best man at the wedding.

When the wedding day arrives, everything goes smoothly, though it is all over rather quickly. Marcus makes it a point to be the first one to congratulate Trina on marrying McTeague. Trina is happy on her wedding day until everyone begins to leave, including her family. Suddenly, she becomes overwhelmed with fear at the thought of being left alone with McTeague.

Over the next several months, Trina slowly gets used to the idea of being McTeague’s wife. In part, it helps that McTeague makes an effort to dress nicer and attend events that Trina likes, such as arts festivals. Trina and McTeague’s marriage hits its first rough patch when McTeague decides to buy an apartment against Trina’s wishes. Even though Trina saves a lot of money and still has her lottery winnings, she refuses to spend any of it. She tells McTeague that he will have to pay for the apartment with his own money, preferring to hoard hers instead.

One day, Trina, McTeague and a few other families they know have a picnic. On the way to the park, they run into Marcus, and one of the other families invites Marcus to join them. During the picnic, the men have an impromptu wrestling tournament. Marcus ends up wrestling McTeague. When McTeague wins the fight, Marcus grows angry and bites McTeague’s earlobe, drawing blood. In a blind rage, McTeague attacks Marcus and breaks his arm.

More time passes. Trina and McTeague continue to run into marriage problems due to Trina’s extreme frugality, During this period, Trina gets letters from her family asking for money because they are doing poorly in Los Angeles. However, she does not send them anything except a few dollars she solicits from McTeague.

Despite the Sieppes’ struggles, they locate a ranch for Marcus to purchase, so Marcus decides to move away. Before he leaves, he tells McTeague goodbye and wishes him luck with his business. A few weeks later, McTeague gets a letter informing him that he needs to stop practicing dentistry immediately because he does not have a degree. As a result, McTeague has to close his practice. Both McTeague and Trina suspect Marcus is behind the letter.

Because Trina will not dip into her savings, she and McTeague have to sell their current apartment as well as most of their belongings. This puts a great deal of stress on their already crumbling marriage. After they move, McTeague struggles to hold down a job, and he grows increasingly angry at Trina for refusing to spend money. He begins to drink more and becomes more abusive toward Trina.

One day, McTeague goes missing. Trina worries that something bad happened to him. However, she soon discovers that McTeague stole a few hundred dollars she had stored in the house and ran off with it. McTeague spends all this money in a short period of time—much of it on alcohol—and then returns to Trina to ask for more, claiming that he’s starving. However, Trina is furious and refuses to give McTeague any money.

Around the same time, Trina withdraws all of her invested lottery winnings to keep in her home because she likes being able to look at and play with her money. When McTeague learns Trina has all of this money and did not give him any, he grows irate. Even worse, he learns that, on top of hoarding all of the money, Trina has sold his concertina, one of his prized possessions. These betrayals drive McTeague to confront Trina, kill her, and then steal her lottery winnings.

After killing Trina, McTeague flees San Francisco with a plan to eventually escape to Mexico. On his way to Mexico, he meets a gold prospector named Cribbens, and the two briefly go into business together. Before long, the two get lucky and find gold. However, before McTeague can make any money from his lucky find, he has to flee into Death Valley because the authorities are after him for Trina’s murder. Before long, McTeague ends up alone in Death Valley with nothing but a limited supply of water and Trina’s lottery winnings. Although the authorities give up pursuing him because it is too dangerous, Marcus, who hears about what McTeague did, chases after him to get revenge and to get his hands on Trina’s money.

Marcus’s pursuit culminates in a final confrontation with McTeague, which ends in Marcus’s death. However, before Marcus dies, he manages to handcuff himself with McTeague. As such, McTeague is left alone in Death Valley, chained to a dead man—and on the brink of death himself—with only Trina’s lottery winnings to keep him company.