Thursday, March 25, 2010

McTeague

Reading McTeague has been very interesting. The beginning of the book was kind of hard to get into but then it kind of just took off. The character of McTeague is not my favorite and rightly so. As the novel kept moving forward, McTeague became less and less favorable. He firstly stole Trina right from under Marcus (even though the two are cousins so that is kind of gross). He then seems to pressure Trina into a relationship, love, and eventually marriage. He is slow, sluggish, and annoying when it comes to everything essential to a courtship. He always seems uninterested in everything he does and everything that has to do with Trina. McTeague is also very greedy as well and he goes as far to kill his own wife for the money that she would not give him. He was never a moral character throughout the novel and he just ends up being a murderer of his wife and his former best friend. His karma really does come at the end of the book though when he ends up being trapped in the desert with a dead Marcus handcuffed to himself.
McTeague never does get to redeem himself though, but I really do not think that he is a redeemable character. He had so many points where he could have been noble but he does not take the opportunity. He deserved everything that he got in the end. He was a horrible character who's nature did not show until greed took him over.
In the end, the book McTeague was an interesting read but I do not think that I would have picked it up on my own to read it. It had an interesting premise but I just did not like it as much as the other books that we have read so far in this class. I look forward to reading a different book with a different plot, characters, and ending.

2 comments:

  1. Did you feel as though McTeague's meeting Trina was to blame for his downfall, Sarah?

    _The House of Mirth_ is very different in terms of the features that you mention, and we will be reading that next.

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  2. I understand, and agree, that McTeague was an unfavorable character, but ask yourself, is he more unfavorable than Marcus or Trina? Also, is he more greedy than Marcus or Trina? I feel as if all three of these characters act as a triumvirate of greed and obsession.

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