That day when Trina bought a lottery ticket from Maria had changed everything. That little peace of paper had a major impact on almost every main character that lived in the flat.
Winning five thousand dollars by Trina change everything for herself. She got married on McTeague so suddenly that I couldn’t believe that they made their decision about marriage so fast. And the wedding itself was something you wouldn’t like to miss where Marcus was making fun of McTeague who couldn’t distinguish champagne from beer. Her parent took of to a new place also at the same day. Trina found herself left alone with her new husband in their new place.
I guess Marcus was the first person whose life was affected by that lottery ticket. He was very upset when he started realizing that he is loosing Trina as a girlfriend. She was going out with his pal McTeague and Marcus didn’t like it, but he was hiding his emotions. And that ticket was last drop for Marcus. He started to treat McTeague differently day by day, and finally he let his anger out in salon where he was drinking and McTeague was seating behind him. He started it by screaming that he wants to get part of that five grands. Marcus broke McTeague’s pipe and almost stabbed him with his pocket knife. Than was that stupid fight in the park where McTeague broke his arm during his second attempt to wrestle down McTeague. And at the end Marcus slammed by the door before leaving by informing the City Hall that Mr. McTeague is doing his practice without graduating from a dental school. For loosing Trina and her money, Marcus decided to ruin McTeague’s life.
Trina was also affected by this money. Who could expect that she is going to be so greedy and so crazy about the money? First she became very angry at McTeague who signed papers for renting a house that she liked and wanted. They would have to pay the rent for the first month and she didn’t even want to help her husband to pay that money. She didn’t want to add some furniture to her house even though that she could afford it. But when she said that she couldn’t send fifty dollars to her mama whose husband’s business vent down was something that I will never understand. She even made McTeague to pay some share of that money which I guess she never send to her mom. And this is a person who actually has fife thousand dollars invested in her uncle’s toy business. But this is not all because she got even worst when her husband had to quit his dental practice. At the auction she even wanted to sell some things that were very close to McTeague, some things that came to his life far before Trina. Yes, it is true that now they would have to save money, but she could give a dime to her husband for a carfare in that raining day when she told McTeague gets out of the house and look for a new job. She even took McTeague’s money that he made and never gave it back to him. She still was making enough profit to fix their new home or move down to a better place from the investment interest and making toys for her uncle. She liked playing with her saving when she was alone, because Trina became possess by the money and idea of saving money. She turned into miser.
McTeague’s life was also changed. Before loosing his practice, he didn’t pay that much attention to Trina’s behavior about the money. He couldn’t believe that his lovely wife is so cheap. He still could afford good tobacco and a bottle of beer every day. Latter everything has changed for him because now he would have to depend on Trina. He started to dislike Trina day by day for her meticulousness. She didn’t even want to buy him a normal beer and tobacco that he usually liked because she said that they couldn’t afford it. McTeague couldn’t understand Trina’s behavior, and as a result he became brutal to her. At first he started raising his voice at her and then he started hurting her when she refused to give him some money for whisky. McTeague became a totally different person to Trina and to himself.
Zerkow is another example of greediness. I’ve never seen anybody possessed by the gold and stories about gold so sick and perverted. I don’t know why Maria was telling that story about gold set to Zerkow every time, but she grew a beast in Zrkow’s mind by doing that. She was telling him that story every time he asked her and nobody could expect what is going to happened from all that. Yes, it is true that Maria married Zerkow because for her he would be the only husband that she could possibly have. But nobody could realize that Zerkow married Maria for terrorizing her every day about that golden set. Even the death of their child didn’t stop Zerkow from poking about where Maria was hiding the golden set. Zerkow was sick about that gold set so much that at night he was looking for it in his apartment by digging the floor and the walls with a knife. Poor Maria later was killed by the monster that she’d created herself by telling a story about the golden set. And the monster killed him latter after realizing and understanding what he has done and became.
The only characters that were affected by that lottery ticket in a good way were Old Graniss and Mrs.Baker. After everyone was gone from the flat and Old Graniss sold his clinic, this couple finally started to talk to each other even though that they have been in love for a long time. Finally nobody could bother them and nobody could gossip about their strange love.
