Walter Morel Timeline and Summary

•  Back
• More 

• Meet Walter Morel, a man of simple pleasures who lives for the moment and loves to laugh really loudly.
• His zest for life quickly wins the heart of a pretty young woman named Gertrude.
• But Walter fibs about his personal finances to get her to marry him. Strike one.
• And oh yeah, he decides six months into his marriage that he loves to drink. Strike two, three, and four billion.
• As time passes, Walter drinks more and starts to fight with Gertrude when she accuses him of coming home drunk.
• One night, Walter drops a kitchen drawer against his shin and boots it with rage right into Gertrude's face. It strikes her in the head and opens a gash.
• Walter tries to help stop the bleeding, but Mrs. Morel tells him to get away.
• Right when we don't have one iota of pity left for the guy, Walter takes ill, and his wife nurses him back to health.
• After this, he starts faking illness for the sake of getting sympathy. But it's clear that his wife doesn't really love him anymore.
• More time passes, and Mr. Morel starts to fade into the background of his family life. He isn't welcome in his own home.
• Understandably so.
• Then he gets into an accident while mining, and has to be brought to a hospital away from his home. Mrs. Morel gets on a train and brings him some clothes and toiletries. How nice.
• He's off his feet for quite a while after that, having smashed his leg up really badly.
• From this point on, Morel only exists as a sort of ghost in his own home. He shows up every now and then in a drunken rage, uniting his wife and his son Paul against him.
• When Walter's son William dies, he is unable to conjure up any emotion. He avoids the graveyard where William is buried.
• The only thing he seems to feel is anger. Once, he nearly punches his son Paul in the face, but stops when his wife starts complaining of health problems.
• After his wife, Gertrude, gets sick and dies, Walter is at a complete loss. He seems almost embarrassed to be in his own home.
• Now that William, Annie, and Arthur are all gone, he decides that he can't live with Paul anymore. He and his son go their separate ways.
• The last we hear of Mr. Morel the Elder, he's gone to live with a nice family somewhere.
• Fine.