Gertrude Morel Timeline and Summary

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• At age thirty-one, Gertrude moves into a mining neighborhood called "The Bottoms" with her husband Walter. The neighborhood is terrible, her home is terrible, her husband is terrible, and she even thinks her children are pretty terrible for a while.
• She takes her children to a local festival called "The Wakes." She accuses her husband Walter of being tipsy when he comes home.
• This is a pattern that will repeat itself throughout the book: Walter gets drunk, Walter comes home drunk, Gertie is sad about it.
• Flashback to when Gertrude first met Walter: she loved his laughter and how he enjoyed simple pleasures.
• Gertrude marries Walter, and for the first six months of their marriage, he wears a blue ribbon to show that he doesn't drink at all.
• As you know, his sobriety is about to be flushed down the toilet… a toilet full of pub ale, that is.
• Mrs. Morel finds out after their move that Walter can't afford the furniture in their home.
• Also, it turns out that she can't talk to him about any deep ideas. Also also, her husband is back on the sauce.
• One night, she and Walter get in a fight, and Walter physically throws her out of the house. While she's pregnant with their third child.
• Classy, bro.
• When it's time for the baby to come, she calls on a neighbor to help her.
• Walter's violence eventually turns itself on their children, and Gertrude can't handle this. She takes the children out of the house for walks.
• One night, Walter drops a drawer and kicks it toward Gertrude, splitting her head open. He tries to help her fix it up, but she tells him to stay away.
• We don't blame her.
• Gertrude becomes aware that her husband is taking her grocery money to drink. She chews Walter out, and he says he's leaving for good.
• He packs himself a bindle and leaves. She finds the bindle hidden in their coal shed a few hours later, and laughs. He's a pretty pathetic guy, really.
• Case in point: Walter gets sick. And Gertrude takes care of him, because she feels like she has to or something. There is a time of peace, but it's clear that she has begun to love him less and less.
• A neighbor named Mrs. Anthony approaches Mrs. Morel and accuses her son William of ripping her son's collar. Gertrude defends her son against both Mrs. Anthony and Walter.
• She'd defend her children over anyone else. That much is clear.
• When the children are old enough, Mrs. Morel joins a community group and starts writing articles about social problems. Good for you, girl.
• She gets her son William a job in the co-op office.
• William succeeds enough that he takes a job away from home, but Mrs. Morel is sad to see him go. After his departure, she makes Paul her new companion.
• Yes, we said "companion" because we were hoping you'd think that word sounded oddly romantic. Because the relationship between Mrs. Morel and Paul is continually described by the book's narrator as being like that of two lovers.
• With William's money coming in, Mrs. Morel is happy for a while.
• Then she gets Paul a job at Jordan's Manufacturing.
• When Paul leaves for his first day of work, she congratulates herself for sending two working men out into the world, and feels that their accomplishments are her own. Yikes.
• Soon, William comes home for Christmas with his girlfriend Lily. Mrs. Morel isn't impressed, and greets the girl coldly.
• She wouldn't be, though. She hates other women sniffing around "her men."
• In the meantime, Paul's new job is hurting his health. So Gertrude takes him for a trip out to a place called Willey Farm.
• Gertrude warns William about how a bad marriage can destroy your life (she would know).
• Then the Morel household receives a message saying that William is sick, and Gertrude goes to London to take care of him. Before anyone knows what's happening, William is dead.
• Mrs. Morel is inconsolable, understandably. She enters a period of not speaking and staring into space.
• From this point forward, Mrs. Morel's life "root[s] itself in Paul" (6.486).
• This is not so understandable.
• Miriam, Paul's love interest, stops paying visits to the Morel house on Thursday nights. Paul is happy about it, because he thinks Miriam complicates his life too much.
• But one night, Gertrude comes down to her kitchen to find Paul and Miriam hanging out alone. She greets Miriam frostily.
• She begins to hate Miriam for making Paul irritable and unhappy.
• At least Paul has turned out to be quite the painter. Gertrude thinks his work is really good, and feels a huge amount of pride in his accomplishments.
• Surprise, surprise.
• Paul promises Gertrude he'll never marry anyone and will always take care of her. She's flattered, but tells Paul he doesn't know what he's saying.
• Gertrude finally buys her son Arthur out of the army, as she hopes to get another son back under her thumb.
• One day, a postman comes to the door with a letter for Paul. Of course, Mrs. Morel opens it and finds out Paul has won first prize in a painting contest, which is worth quite a bit of money.
• She is overjoyed with pride.
• She also finds out around this time, though, that Paul has taken an interest in a married woman name Clara Dawes. You guessed it: she isn't happy about Clara's interest in Paul, either.
• Mrs. Morel meets Clara, and likes her a lot more than Miriam. But she also feels bad for the woman, knowing she'll never be able to keep Paul.
• Does she really feel that bad for her, though? We're not so sure.
• Next time we hear from Mrs. Morel, we find out that her health is quite bad. In fact, she's got this huge tumor growing out of the side of her.
• Although the doctors say at first that something might be able to be done about it, it doesn't look good.
• Old Gertie finds out eventually that there's no hope. She slowly—very slowly—fades away.
• See, she does not go toward death gracefully. She clings to life with every fiber of her being, despite the fact that priests and neighbors tell her it'll be a relief to die.
• One morning, Mrs. Morel finally loses consciousness and dies.