Michaelis

Michaelis is a young Greek man who operates the coffee joint adjacent to the ashheaps, a desolate industrial wasteland between West Egg and New York City. He is the principal witness at the inquest following Myrtle Wilson's death, and his testimony provides the most direct account of George Wilson's psychological collapse. As a neighbor of four years, Michaelis occupies a unique position in the novel: he is the only character who observes the Wilson tragedy from beginning to end, yet he remains entirely outside the wealthy social circles of East Egg and West Egg, a working-class figure whose perspective is grounded in the grim reality of the Valley of Ashes.

Role in the Aftermath of Myrtle Wilson's Death

On the afternoon of the fatal accident, Michaelis had slept through the intense heat until after five o'clock, then strolled over to the garage to find George Wilson sick in his office—genuinely ill, pale as his own pale hair and shaking all over. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused, saying he would miss too much business. While Michaelis was trying to persuade him, a violent racket broke out overhead, and Wilson calmly explained that he had locked his wife in the room upstairs and intended to keep her there until they moved away. Michaelis was astonished; in four years of neighborly acquaintance, Wilson had never seemed capable of such a statement. Michaelis tried to learn what had happened, but Wilson would say nothing, instead throwing curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and asking what he had been doing at certain times on certain days. When some workmen passed by, Michaelis took the opportunity to leave, intending to return later but forgetting to do so. When he came outside again a little after seven, he heard Mrs. Wilson's voice downstairs in the garage, loud and scolding, crying out, "Beat me! Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!" A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting, and before Michaelis could move from his door, the business was over. The "death car" did not stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and disappeared around the next bend. Michaelis was not even sure of its color—he told the first policeman that it was light green.

Vigil with George Wilson

Michaelis stayed with George Wilson through the long night following Myrtle's death. Until long after midnight, a changing crowd lapped up against the front of the garage while Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the office door was open, and everyone who came in glanced irresistibly through it; finally someone closed it. Michaelis and several other men were with Wilson—first four or five, later two or three—and still later Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to wait fifteen minutes longer while he went back to his own place and made a pot of coffee. After that, he stayed alone with Wilson until dawn. About three o'clock, the quality of Wilson's incoherent muttering changed; he grew quieter and began to talk about the yellow car, announcing that he had a way of finding out whom it belonged to, and then blurting out that a couple of months ago his wife had come from the city with her face bruised and her nose swollen. When he heard himself say this, he flinched and began to cry "Oh, my God!" again in his groaning voice. Michaelis made clumsy attempts to distract him, asking how long he had been married (twelve years) and whether he had any children. The hard brown beetles kept thudding against the dull light, and whenever Michaelis heard a car tearing along the road outside, it sounded to him like the car that had not stopped a few hours before. He did not like to go into the garage because the workbench was stained where the body had been lying, so he moved uncomfortably around the office, learning every object in it before morning, and from time to time sat down beside Wilson trying to keep him quieter. He suggested calling a church or a priest, but Wilson said he did not belong to any. When Michaelis opened a drawer Wilson pointed to, he found nothing but a small, expensive dog leash made of leather and braided silver, apparently new. Wilson said he had found it the day before and knew it was "something funny." Michaelis did not see anything odd in that and gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might have bought it, but Wilson began saying "Oh, my God!" again in a whisper. Wilson insisted, "He murdered her," and when Michaelis said it was an accident, Wilson shook his head, his eyes narrowing and his mouth widening slightly with the ghost of a superior "Hm!" He declared, "I know, I'm one of these trusting fellas and I don't think any harm to nobody, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop." Michaelis had seen this too but had not thought it significant, believing Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband rather than trying to stop any particular car.

The Dawn Revelation

About five o'clock, it was blue enough outside to snap off the light. 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. After a long silence, Wilson muttered that he had told his wife she might fool him but could not fool God. He got up with an effort, walked to the rear window, and leaned with his face pressed against it, saying, "I said 'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!'" Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that Wilson was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. When Wilson repeated, "God sees everything," Michaelis assured him, "That's an advertisement." But Wilson stood there a long time, his face close to the window pane, nodding into the twilight. By six o'clock, Michaelis was worn out and grateful for the sound of a car stopping outside—one of the watchers from the night before who had promised to return. He cooked breakfast for three, which he and the other man ate together. Wilson was quieter now, and Michaelis went home to sleep. When he awoke four hours later and hurried back to the garage, Wilson was gone.

Significance

Michaelis functions as a narrative conduit through which the reader witnesses the raw, unmediated grief and madness of George Wilson. Unlike the wealthy characters who retreat into their money and carelessness, Michaelis stays with Wilson through the night, attempting comfort and distraction, and is the one who sees Wilson's delusion take shape as he gazes at the billboard eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. His testimony at the inquest brings to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife, setting the key for the newspaper reports the next morning. Michaelis's perspective is that of a working man who lives beside the ashheaps, not above them, and his simple, practical attempts to help—making coffee, suggesting a priest, asking about children—stand in stark contrast to the indifference of the Buchanans and the self-protective withdrawal of Meyer Wolfsheim. He is the last ordinary person to see George Wilson before Wilson sets out to find Gatsby, and his account provides the most complete picture of how a man is driven to murder by grief and the conviction that a divine eye has witnessed his wife's betrayal.