The Importance of George Wilson in The Great Gatsby Essay

     In the text, The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald leads us to sympathize with the central character of the text, Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald evokes our sympathy using non-linear narrative and extended flashbacks as well as imagery, characterization and theme. Through these mediums, Fitzgerald is able to reveal Gatsby as a character who is in an unrelenting pursuit of an unattainable dream. While narrative and imagery reveal him to be a mysterious character, Gatsby's flaw is his ultimate dream which makes him a tragic figure and one with which we sympathize.

Throughout the story of the The Great Gatsby, secrecy is a recurring theme.Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan are a married couple who live a luxurious life on the East Egg in New York. While having dinner with Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker, Tom received a call and left the room. Daisy follows him, leaving Nick and Jordan alone. When Nick tries to speak Jordan shushes him and says she wants to hear what's happening between Tom and Daisy. “I thought everyone knew… Tom’s got some woman in New York"(Fitzgerald 15). Tom has a mistress in New York. The reader later finds out that her name Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George Wilson, who doesn't even know about the relationship between the his wife and Tom. As stated by Tom “Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister up in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn't even know he is alive”(Fitzgerald 26). The secret is kept between almost everyone as implied by Jordan but kept hidden from George Wilson. This secret creates dilemma in the relationship between Daisy and Tom causing Daisy to feel unwanted

Myrtle Wilson, also married, hides her love affair from her husband, George Wilson. She is extremely unhappy with her husband claiming when they met, "[she] thought he knew something…but he was not fit to [even] lick [her] shoe" (39). It is evident how important class and wealth is to Myrtle. Once she found out her husband was not rich she became utterly dissapointed. But when she first met Tom, "he had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and [she] couldn 't keep [her] eyes off him" (40). She is immediately attracted to Tom’s obvious wealth. Myrtle claims Tom Buchanan is the love of her life, that being said she uses Tom to escape the “Valley of Ashes.” She longs to live the American Dream amongst the wealthy, but struggles to keep up with the

The dramatic increase intensifies when Daisy overrides his husband’s paramour, Myrtle Wilson. Retaining his complete and unwavering loyalty to Daisy, Gatsby takes the blame upon himself, while Daisy is conspiring with her husband in the

In part 4, Literature- critical study, we looked at literary works and analysed them. One of these literary works was the Great Gatsby, one of the characters that fascinated me was George Wilson. Therefore, I have chosen a diary entry to analyze George Wilson’s thoughts and feeling surrounding Myrtle’s death, who was his wife. He wrote this diary entry the day after Myrtle’s death. I was not sure which date to pick, but I know that it was in 1922 because Gatsby is 32 years old and he was born in 1890. It was summer and August is the main time period in which the events take place. So, I have chosen for August 30th, 1922.

Tom Buchanan is a snobby rich person who cares about nobody but himself and does not work. Tom also uses his money as a weapon to get whatever he likes or wants. George Wilson is a lower class man who has little money and has worked his whole life trying to live off of little bits of money that he makes. George Wilson is a hardworking low to middle class mechanic.

Myrtle Wilson is obsessed with leaving her poor life behind her by being with Tom but unlike Gatsby, her attempts are fruitless. She attempts to make herself seem an upper class person like when she changed her dress before the party in chapter two. She believes her husband is beneath her and talks of all low statuses as if she isn’t one of them. "I told that boy about the ice." Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. "These people! You have to keep after them all the time." (42)

The nineteen twenties was a time of lavish parties, the stock market was on the rise and women such as flappers were gaining independence. Despite this, men at the time were still seen as superior and their brutish, abusive, and cheating was considered the norm. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Tom Buchanan and George Wilson are more similar than different, despite the money that determines their fate. This story reveals how Tom and George both have similar attitudes towards women and both are being cuckolded, the only thing that differentiates the two is money and power.

“Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!”(146) is just an example to show how rude Myrtle was to Wilson. They lived in the “Valley of Ashes” along with being in the working class and being very poor. When George found out that Myrtle was having an affair with someone else, he just did not know what to do. The best thing he could think of was to lock her in the basement and prevent her from ever leaving him again. Wilson felt heartbroken because he did his best to keep Myrtle in his possession,

Myrtle and Tom use this lie to cope with the fact that they can never truly be together, despite extreme unhappiness in their own marriages. As previously stated, they are provided with stability from their marriages that they do not have to courage to abandon. The impossibility of Tom and Myrtle having a future together is evident when Tom hits Myrtle for repeatedly yelling Daisy’s name (37). Tom, up until this moment, has been able to have the security of a marriage and the passion of an affair both existing in separate spheres. This realization that he ultimately cannot keep living in two separate worlds ultimately pushes Tom to choose his life to Daisy.

After feeling distant from his wife for some time, Wilson feels reason to believe his wife is having an affair behind his back. This causes Wilson to become very angry at his wife making him lock her in the apartment and forcing her to move out of the city with him. Myrtle is very

4. Myrtle Wilson was very jealous. She thought that her husband was having an affair

Wilson gives to Myrtle his complete trust in the same way he provides Myrtle with what she asks for, but she abuses it. She takes her husband for granted while at the same time, she gazes at Tom sitting on a pedestal she has made for him. Tom is the man that can make Myrtle's every fantasy come true, but also the man that will lead to her early death. Myrtle is seen to be a fun and floozy mistress, but not as a real wife. She, as superficial as it may be, is not someone that Tom could take to parties and introduce to his parents. Myrtle controls Wilson, while Tom manipulates her simply for enjoyment. For example, Tom tells Myrtle that the reason they could never wed is because his wife, Daisy, is Catholic and she would never stand for a divorce. In this scene, Catherine, Myrtle's sister, tells Nick Carraway, the narrator, about the reasons why Tom and Myrtle may never come

Wilson and Gatsby are similar in that they both wanted the American Dream. Both men are working

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 he did not stop her, and so ignorant that he did not 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,