The Great Gatsby George Wilson Quotes

Though one of the smallest characters in the book, Fitzgerald took the time to craft a character that represents weakness just by being himself, and that person is George Wilson. Wilson is one of the smallest yet most important in all of The Great Gatsby. He is claimed by his wife, Myrtle, to be a “‘dirty little coward”, which is most likely one of the reasons she leaves him in the dust behind her(137). This statement establishes the fact that Wilson has a weakness of living almost in fear. Wilson is living in an emotionally abusive relationship, and like most in this situation, he does not have the courage to stand up for himself and fight back. However, this fear backfires when Wilson finds a beautiful, silver dog collar. After finding it,

he jumps to the conclusion that it was a gift to his wife from a lover. Due to this realization, he locks Myrtle in her room and plans to move West, proving that he had more strength than she had anticipated. However he does not have the emotional strength to follow through with it, and in a fit of hysteria, Myrtle runs into the road and is instantly killed after being run over by a car. He was so fearful of her that her didn’t stop her, and so ignorant that he didn’t realize his situation until death came knocking at his door. As it is gracefully put by Tom,“‘He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive’”(26). After Myrtle’s death, something changes inside of him, something snaps, and it is best explained through the words of one of Wilson’s neighbors, Michaelis: “He was his wife’s man, not his own”(137).

After placing so much into Myrtle and allowing himself to be completely taken over by her, her death caused him to lose a sense of identity. This reveals how little power he actually ever had, even when she was alive. This loss of power also caused his biggest role in the story, the murdering of Gatsby. After losing Myrtle, the only part of his life that had any direction, even if it was South, was gone, and this debilitating weakness lead him to not only kill Gatsby, but to kill himself, for he no longer had any purpose. Wilson was so weak, that it even show through his physicality, him being described as a “blond, spiritless man”(25). With every day that passed, he became weaker and weaker, soon becoming nothing more than the dust that clung to every, last object in the Valley of Ashes. George Wilson was only a simple bloom in this garden of vibrant people. However, he was plagued with a diseased named weakness, and everywhere he went, it followed him, leaving a path marked by destruction, affecting everyone he came into contact

with.