George Wilson In The Great Gatsby

To begin with, George Wilson seems to find himself being held hostage by his awful past continuously throughout the novel. Firstly with his inability to let go of his wife Myrtle who clearly no longer has love for him. This causes him to do outrageous things for example he tells Michaelis that “I've got my wife locked up in there”(Fitzgerald 143). He takes precautions by locking Myrtle up in the bedroom in the event that she may escape and leave him. This clearly shows that Wilson is so attached to Myrtle that even though he knows an affair is happening he can't let go of her. Briefly after, Myrtle escapes the bedroom, as she runs out into the street looking for help, but before she knew it she had been blindsided by Gatsby’s yellow car.
Secondly, George is held hostage by his past when he can't handle the consequences of his mistakes. Shortly after his wife is killed, “he announced that he had a way of finding out whom the yellow car belonged to”(Fitzgerald 164). Wilson first comes to the door of Tom Buchanan who indirectly helps him trace the vehicle back to Jay Gatsby. George believes Tom and begins his search for revenge on Gatsby, this revenge turns out to be of the fatal variety. Tom shoots Gatsby numerous times leaving him filled with remorse soon after, so much so that Wilson takes his own life as“the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off the grass”(Fitzgerald 170). Though this is something that happened recently in the past, Wilson’s mistake of presuming Gatsby had killed his wife is something he can't handle, therefore causing him to not only lose his wives live but his own. The third and final time George is held hostage is by his poor past, he grew up and now lives a poor life. Money may be one of the reasons for why his wife had an affair, her dissatisfaction with being a poor gas station owners wife urges her to get out. Theres only so much he can do to subdue the problem of keeping her around because he’s not like the wealthy who can just retreat”back to