The motifs of greed and possession recur in Frank Norris's 1899 novel Mcteague. At the beginning of the novel, we see greed in its purest and most disgusting form in the Polish Jew Zerkow, and again in a more unstable and neurotic form in Maria Macapa. Both of these characters, to a large extent, have already disappeared from society when we are introduced to them, and we see them at the beginning in a degenerate state. In the character of Trina, who is Mcteague's wife, we see the power of greed to transform a person from a good daughter and wife to a scruffy, selfish, and completely unsalvageable human being. Greed undoubtedly contributes to the downfall of both of the novel's main women, and on the surface it appears that Norris is equating femininity with greed. However, given Norris's detailed descriptions of these women, we can see their rapaciousness as the result of environmental and hereditary factors, rather than as the expression of an inherently feminine flaw. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Near the beginning of the novel, Norris introduces Maria Macapa, the Mexican handyman who hangs out in the apartment. The narrator immediately describes her as greedy and manipulative, but above all unstable. When she first introduces herself, Marcus describes her to Trina by saying, “She's a greaser and she's weird in the head” (Norris 20). Norris seems to link his petty thefts and his talent for swindling more to his Mexican origins than to his gender. He tells us, "There was a legend that Maria's people had once been immensely wealthy in Central America," and indeed, if his story is to be believed, his family once owned a gold service of immense value (Norris 21). Whether her story is true or not, she herself seems to believe it, and this obsession appears to be the underlying cause of her desire to acquire wealth. She believes that she was once in a position of wealth and power, and now resents those in positions superior to her. She's greedy, but she's not stingy, and Norris tells us that she "spent [her money] on blue polka-dotted shirts and ties, trying to dress like the girls who tended the soda fountain at the corner candy store." . She was sick with envy of these women" (Norris 34). Fixated on the gold of her past and stuck in a position that offers her no luxuries, she becomes a figure of greed in the novel, because she is willing to defraud the apartment's tenants to earn a few extra cents. Fate and her crazy obsession with the past have more to do with her greedy behavior than with her femininity. Norris describes the development and results of a different kind of pathological obsession with money in the character Trina. Although Trina's compulsive accumulation of money makes her seem at least as greedy (and unbalanced) as Maria, the environmental causes of her behavior are quite different. Norris provides such compelling descriptions of these environmental and hereditary factors that it is difficult to imagine that is simply trying to equate women with greed. She comes from a humble German lineage, in stark contrast to Maria's fabulous family wealth. At the beginning of the novel, Trina's treatment of money appears to be a virtue rather than a vice, and Norris describes it as "economy" rather than "greed". He immediately associates this trait with his heritage, telling us: "A good deal of peasant blood still ran pure in his veins, and he had all the instinct of a hardy and miserable mountain race - the instinct that saves without thinking... saving for the sake of saving, accumulating without knowing why (Norris AUnlike Maria, Trina avoids spending her money at all costs, because she values ​​the security of having money more than actually having material possessions. Norris indicates that Trina's stinginess is the main result of her inheritance, even though the rest of her family does not display the same extreme of stinginess as her. What does this change cause in Trina that makes her different from the rest of the Sieppes? Trina marries Mcteague, which puts her in a vulnerable position, in which she has very little control over her life. Trina sees marriage as an unalterable fact and it doesn't even occur to her that she could potentially run away. Additionally, Mcteague is a physically dominant character; he is a huge man, immensely strong, and could (and later does) forcefully bend Trina to his will without breaking a sweat. Trina realizes that she is helpless and initially responds with bouts of instability, alternating between despondency and needy affection. Soon, the narrator tells us, “Trina's emotions, swinging at first from one extreme to the other, began to settle into an equilibrium of calm and placid stillness” (Norris 187). In the same paragraph, he mentions that Trina ran their household with "an economy that often bordered on positive avarice. It was a passion for her to save money." There is a close connection between control over one's emotions and control over one's money (Norris 188). Karen Jacobson points out in her article "Who's the Boss? McTeague, Naturalism, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" that Trina classically displays compulsive behavior in response to the need for control in her life (32). Soon, Trina discovers that her compulsion to save is stronger than she is. She is unable to spend even a little money on her husband, herself or her family, even when they ask her for help. He admits, "He may be bad, but I can't help it. He's stronger than me" (Norris 210). Trina's passion for saving quickly becomes pathological, and once Mcteague loses his job, her greed becomes a major source of friction in their marriage. When Trina continues to insist that they move to cheaper and more inhospitable places, Mcteague becomes frustrated with his own helplessness. He reacts to this loss of control by resorting to bullying and abuse. First, he threatens her by saying, “After this, you will do just what I tell you, Trina Mcteague.” He then actually carries out these threats and hurts her (Norris 299). Why do their respective reactions to the loss of control seem so logical to the reader? Although Norris seems somewhat biased towards women, as he generally characterizes them as unstable and uses terms such as "highly strung female nerves", he gives us another logical explanation for Trina's compulsion to save; Trina's father, a man obsessed with military precision and control, provided Trina with an excellent source on which to model her obsessive behavior. Jacobson makes this connection between Trina's compulsive saving and her childhood environment, noting that "in families where dissidence is forbidden and perfection is required, obsessive rituals and phobias will be more common" (Jacobson 32, quoting Salzman). Although Norris was unaware of obsessive-compulsive disorder or its causes, the ideas of naturalism fit well with more recent observations on personality disorders, namely that disorders such as this are caused by both hereditary predisposition and environment. Therefore, Trina is a victim not of her femininity, but of her upbringing and genetics. His compulsive behavior then leads to a cycle of degeneration; her greed embitters her husband and makes him more brutal, which in turn causes Trina to focus more and more on money, so as to,.