Wilson Wilson is a failed businessman who lives in a rundown garage on the outskirts of New York City.
He’s married to Myrtle, Tom Buchanan’s mistress, and his mental instability leads to her death.
While Wilson may not be a particularly sympathetic character, his quotes provide some insight into the dark side of the American dream.
The Great Gatsby Quotes With Page Numbers
George Wilson Quotes Chapter 7
“I’m sick,” said Wilson without moving. “Been sick all day.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m all run down.”
“Well, shall I help myself?” Tom demanded. “You sounded well enough on the phone.”
With an effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight his face was green.”~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: George Wilson and Tom Buchanan), Chapter 7, Page 77
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he said. “But I need money pretty bad, and I was wondering what you were going to do with your old car.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 77
“What do you want money for, all of a sudden?”
“I’ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go West.”
“Your wife does,” exclaimed Tom, startled.
“She’s been talking about it for ten years.” He rested for a moment against the pump, shading his eyes. “And now she’s going whether she wants to or not. I’m going to get her away.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Tom Buchanan and George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 77
“What do I owe you?” demanded Tom harshly.
“I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,” remarked Wilson. “That’s why I want to get away. That’s why I been bothering you about the car.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Dollar twenty.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Tom Buchanan and George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 77
“You don’t have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know what kind of car it was!”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 87
“Some man was talking to him in a low voice and attempting from time to time to lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall and then jerk back to the light again and he gave out incessantly his high horrible call.
‘O, my Ga-od! O, my Ga-od! Oh, Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od!’
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Nick Carraway as the narrator and George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 86
George Wilson Chapter 8 Quotes
“I spoke to her,” he muttered, after a long silence. “I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window”—with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it— “and I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: George Wilson), Chapter 8, Page 98
Quotes About George Wilson
“He was a blond, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us, a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Nick Carraway as the narrator about George Wilson), Chapter 2, Page 20
“Doesn’t her husband object?”
“Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb, he doesn’t know that he’s alive.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Tom Buchanan about George Wilson), Chapter 2, Page 21
Tom Buchanan Quotes With Page Numbers
“I married him [George] because I thought he was a gentleman.” She said finally, “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.”
“You were crazy about him for a while,” said Catherine [Myrtle’s sister].
“Crazy about him!” cried Myrtle incredulously “Who said I was crazy about him? I was never any more crazy about him than I was about that man there” [pointing at Nick].
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Myrtle Wilson about George Wilson), Chapter 2, Pages 25-26
“The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn’t alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before — and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty — as if he had just got some poor girl with child.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Nick Carraway as the narrator about George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 77
“Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn’t working he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife’s man and not his own.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Myrtle Wilson about George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 85
“‘Beat me!’ he heard her cry. ‘Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!’”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Myrtle Wilson about George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 85
“Listen, said Tom, shaking him a little. I just got here a minute ago from New York. I was bringing you that coupe that we’ve been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn’t mine—do you hear? I haven’t seen it all afternoon.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Tom Buchanan about George Wilson), Chapter 7, Page 87
“Wilson’s glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small gray clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Nick Carraway as the narrator about George Wilson), Chapter 8, Page 98
“It was after we started with Gatsby towards the house that the gardener found Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Nick Carraway as the narrator about George Wilson), Chapter 8, Page 99
“Most of those reports were a nightmare — grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue. When Michaelis’s testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson’s suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade — but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn’t say a word. She showed a surprising amount of character about it too — looked at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow of hers, and swore that her sister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely happy with her husband, that her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced herself of it, and cried into her handkerchief, as if the very suggestion was more than she could endure. So Wilson was reduced to a man “deranged by grief.” in order that the case might remain in its simplist form. And it rested there.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Nick Carraway as the narrator about George Wilson), Chapter 9, Page 100
“I told him the truth,” he said. “He came to the door as we were getting ready to leave and when I sent down word that we weren’t in, he tried to force his way upstairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn’t told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute that he was in the house—” He broke off defiantly.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Tom Buchanan about George Wilson), Chapter 9, Page 109
“What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Tom Buchanan about George Wilson), Chapter 9, Page 109
George Wilson Character Traits
George Wilson is a character in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is described as a weak, spiritless, and faintly handsome man who owns a run-down auto shop at the end of the Valley of Ashes. He’s married to Myrtle Wilson, who’s having an affair with Tom Buchanan.
George is portrayed as a servant who his wife and Tom boss around.
George becomes sick when he learns that his wife has been unfaithful. He tries to raise money to move west with his wife. But Tom Buchanan strings him along, promising to sell him a car.
George is obsessed with avenging his wife’s death, even though she is not faithful to him. He becomes insane when he thinks that Jay Gatsby murdered his wife, but in reality, she was killed by Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby’s lover.
George’s personality traits of weakness, servitude, and obsession with revenge build up his character and make him stand out in the book.
“He was a blond, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us, a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator about George Wilson), Chapter 2, Page 20
What does George Wilson symbolize in The Great Gatsby?
George Wilson symbolizes the working-class American who works hard but cannot achieve the American Dream. He reminds us that most Americans live in quiet desperation, unlike the wealthy characters who can flaunt their wealth and use it to escape reality.
George is also portrayed as weak and powerless, which is how the author views most people in America who struggle to make ends meet.
What does George Wilson say about God?
“I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window”—with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it— “and I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (George Wilson), Chapter 8, Page 98
George’s religious beliefs are portrayed as misguided, as he sees his wife’s infidelity as a sin that cannot be forgiven. Despite his belief in God, George’s actions are impulsive, and he ultimately becomes suicidal after a tragic event.
Why did George Wilson shoot Jay Gatsby?
George Wilson shot Jay Gatsby because he was led to believe that Gatsby’s car was the one that hit and killed his wife, Myrtle. Tom Buchanan, who wanted Gatsby out of his life and away from his wife, told George this information privately.
Seeking revenge and being unable to live with the fact that his wife is cheating on him, George goes to Gatsby’s house and shoots him while swimming in his pool before shooting himself in the garden.
Who told Wilson that Gatsby killed Myrtle?
Tom told Wilson that Gatsby killed Myrtle because he believed that Gatsby was the one who hit and killed her with his car. Myrtle was Tom’s mistress, and he wanted to protect her and shift the blame onto someone else. He also wanted revenge against Jay Gatsby for his affair and Daisy.
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