McTeague · Chapter
Chapter XIV explained
Trina and McTeague are forced to sell nearly all their possessions after losing their home and McTeague's dental practice.
What happens
Trina and McTeague are forced to sell nearly all their possessions after losing their home and McTeague's dental practice. Trina's obsessive saving intensifies as she clings to her savings, while McTeague stubbornly refuses to part with his concertina and canary. The sale becomes a neighborhood event, with friends and strangers alike buying their belongings. Old Grannis buys back their wedding photograph as a gift. The chapter ends with Trina and McTeague viewing the empty, desolate suite, where only Trina's wedding bouquet remains unsold.
Themes in this chapter
Greed and Avarice
Trina's pathological hoarding of money and her panic at spending even a fraction of her savings illustrate the destructive power of avarice.
Social Class and Decline
The forced sale of all possessions marks the McTeagues' fall from middle-class respectability to poverty and desolation.
Marriage and Domesticity
The loss of their home and household items symbolizes the collapse of their domestic life and the happiness they once shared.
Characters to notice
- Trina Sieppe
Obsessively saves money and is devastated by the sale of her household items, sobbing at the loss of her home and happiness.
- McTeague
Stubbornly refuses to sell his concertina and canary, and fights over parting with his steel engraving and stone pug dog.
- Old Grannis
Buys back the McTeagues' wedding photograph at the sale and presents it to Trina as a gift.
- Miss Baker
Invites the McTeagues to her room during the sale and reports on the proceedings, but also buys some tidies for herself.
- Zerkow
Attends the sale and buys some of McTeague's dental instruments and gold tape.
- Mr. Heise
Advises McTeague to fight the loss of his license through the courts, but Trina opposes legal action.
Key passages
“It was not mere economy with her now. It was a panic terror lest a fraction of a cent of her little savings should be touched; a passionate eagerness to continue to save in spite of all that had happened.”
Trina's saving had become a frantic fear of spending even the smallest amount, driving her to hoard money regardless of their circumstances.
Highlights Trina's obsessive miserliness after their financial ruin.
“The room had been picked and stripped till only the bare walls and floor remained. Here where they had been married... nothing was left but echoes and the emptiness of complete desolation.”
The suite was completely emptied, leaving only the walls and floor, a stark contrast to the memories of their wedding and early married life.
Emphasizes the emotional devastation of losing their home.
“Only one thing remained. On the wall between the windows, in its oval glass frame, preserved by some unknown and fearful process, a melancholy relic of a vanished happiness, unsold, neglected, and forgotten, a thing that nobody wanted, hung Trina’s wedding bouquet.”
The only object left was Trina's wedding bouquet, preserved in a frame, a sad reminder of their lost happiness that no one cared to buy.
Symbolizes the death of their marriage and the futility of their past joy.