George Wilson commits suicide
George Wilson's suicide is the final, desperate act of a man broken by grief and consumed by a misguided quest for vengeance. After his wife Myrtle is killed in a hit-and-run accident, Wilson, already physically ill and emotionally shattered, becomes convinced that Gatsby is both her lover and her murderer. His suicide, carried out immediately after shooting Gatsby in the pool, completes the novel's tragic arc, transforming a personal vendetta into a senseless double death that leaves no one to answer for the original crime.
Background and Descent into Grief
Wilson's path to suicide begins long before the fatal shot. He is introduced as a "blond, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome," the proprietor of a dusty garage in the Valley of Ashes. His life is one of quiet desperation, dominated by his wife Myrtle, who treats him with contempt. When Myrtle is killed, Wilson is already in a state of physical and mental collapse. Michaelis, the young Greek who runs the coffee shop next door, finds him "sick in his office—really sick, pale as his own pale hair and shaking all over." Wilson reveals that he has locked Myrtle in her room, planning to move them both out West. The shock of discovering her affair has made him physically ill, and he speaks of his wife with a mixture of possessiveness and bewilderment. He tells Michaelis that he confronted Myrtle, taking her to the window and saying, "God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!"—a speech delivered while staring at the giant, faded eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg on a billboard, which he mistakes for the eyes of God.
The Night of the Accident
On the night of Myrtle's death, Wilson is a man unhinged. After the accident, he rocks back and forth on a couch in his garage, emitting a high, horrible call: "Oh, my Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od!" He tells Michaelis that he has a way of finding out who owned the yellow car that killed his wife. He reveals that Myrtle had come home with her face bruised and her nose swollen a couple of months earlier, and that he found a new, expensive dog leash made of leather and braided silver in her bureau. These clues, combined with his knowledge of her secret life, harden his conviction that the driver of the yellow car was her lover and murderer. He insists, "It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop." Michaelis tries to calm him, but Wilson is beyond reason, his mind fixed on a single, terrible purpose.
The Journey to West Egg
After Michaelis leaves to sleep, Wilson disappears. His movements are traced on foot to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad's Hill, where he buys a sandwich he doesn't eat. For three hours he vanishes from view; the police later suppose he spent that time going from garage to garage, inquiring about a yellow car. By half-past two, he has reached West Egg and asked for directions to Gatsby's house. The crucial missing piece—how Wilson learned Gatsby's name—is later revealed by Tom Buchanan. Tom admits that when Wilson came to his door, "He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned the car." Tom, seeking to protect himself and Daisy, directed Wilson's rage toward Gatsby, a lie that seals Gatsby's fate.
The Shooting and Suicide
Wilson arrives at Gatsby's mansion while Gatsby is swimming in the pool. Gatsby, having spent the night waiting outside the Buchanans' house for a sign from Daisy, has finally given up hope. He puts on his bathing suit, instructs the butler to bring any phone calls to the pool, and floats on a pneumatic mattress. The chauffeur, one of Wolfsheim's protégés, hears the shots but thinks nothing of them at the time. When Nick Carraway arrives from the station and rushes to the pool, he finds Gatsby dead, floating on the mattress. A thin red circle of blood traces in the water around him. As they carry Gatsby's body toward the house, the gardener discovers Wilson's body a little way off in the grass. Wilson has shot himself, completing the "holocaust." His suicide is not an act of remorse but of final, absolute despair—a man who has killed the object of his vengeance and has nothing left to live for.
Aftermath and Significance
Wilson's suicide is quickly categorized by the authorities. A detective uses the expression "madman" over Wilson's body, and the newspaper reports reduce him to a man "deranged by grief." This official narrative, encouraged by Catherine's false testimony that Myrtle was happily married and had never seen Gatsby, allows the case to rest in its simplest form. But the truth is more complex. Wilson is not merely a madman; he is a victim of the same careless cruelty that destroys Gatsby. Tom Buchanan, Daisy, and the entire wealthy world of East Egg use Wilson as an instrument to eliminate Gatsby, then retreat into their money and carelessness, leaving the dead to be buried and the mess to be cleaned up by others. Wilson's suicide, like Gatsby's murder, is a consequence of the Buchanans' refusal to take responsibility for their actions. The two bodies in the grass—the dreamer and the avenger—are the final, grotesque product of a world where the rich smash up things and creatures and then let other people clean up the mess they have made.
