The Gilded Tooth Symbol Analysis

The gilded tooth McTeague wants to hang outside his practice to attract patients represents the moral decay McTeague undergoes in his pursuit of wealth. Although a gilded tooth may be attractive and shiny on the outside, a dentist only applies gold to a tooth because the tooth is rotten or decaying. McTeague’s interest in buying this gilded ornament signals his initial obsession with wealth and social status, as well as his desire to appear prosperous and refined to others—he wants the gilded tooth because he believes that its placement outside his dental practice will signal his success and prosperity. McTeague eventually realizes his dream to own the tooth, though it is Trina, not McTeague, who purchases the golden tooth for McTeague as a gift. And it’s not long after he receives the gift that the authorities force McTeague to close down his practice after they learn that he has been practicing dentistry without a license.

As McTeague’s story unfolds, the gilded tooth becomes a symbol of his moral degeneration—or, perhaps, of the base, immoral urges that existed all along behind the thin veneer of respectability his career as a dentist allowed him to have for a time. His increasingly violent and greedy behavior contrasts sharply with the false veneer of success the tooth symbolizes. The gilded tooth—once a source of pride—now underscores the hollowness of McTeague's achievements, the ethical compromises he makes in pursuit of wealth, and the triumph of base, human instinct over learned social norms.