McTeague, a young man with a family history of drunkenness and brutality, establishes a modest dental business in San Francisco.   He meets ands marries Trina Sieppe, the daughter of German immigrants.   Trina’s lottery win of $5,000 triggers a miserliness in her that becomes an obsession to the point where she will spend as little as possible and hoards almost all of her husband’s earnings.    McTeague loses his dental practice when Marcus Schouler, a former suitor of Trina, discovers he doesn’t have a licence to practice and blows the whistle.   McTeague and Trina sink into poverty as he can only get work as a poorly paid labourer and they are forced to move into a slum dwelling.   McTeague begins to drink heavily and one day, incensed by the knowledge of the small fortune that his wife compulsively hoards, he murders her.   He escapes to Death Valley with her gold, but is pursued and caught by Marcus.   The two men fight, and McTeague kills his rival but is unable to escape because Marcus handcuffed himself to McTeague before he died.   Unable to find the key to the handcuffs, McTeague dies of thirst.

[ADD]