W.C. Tuttle Character Analysis in A House for Mr Biswas

A brother-in-law who joins the family in Shorthills and loves the Western stories and novels of the American writer W.C. Tuttle; Mr Biswas soon takes to calling him W.C. Tuttle, and his real name is never revealed. Like Govind, he uses the estate’s resources to his own advantage, dismantling its infrastructure for ill-fated business ventures: first selling fruit and fruit trees, then opening a furniture factory. Soon, however, he buys a lorry, which he successfully rents out to the American army. He later moves his family into the Port of Spain house, where he plays a gramophone incessantly and alternatingly gets along and fights with Mr Biswas. Eventually, his family moves to another house, but he eventually brings them to visit Mr Biswas on Sikkim Street.

W.C. Tuttle Character Timeline in A House for Mr Biswas

The timeline below shows where the character W.C. Tuttle appears in A House for Mr Biswas. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...Mr Biswas distasteful—when his son bragged to Anand about his books, which were all by W.C. Tuttle , Mr Biswas called them “trash,” and Anand agreed. A few days later, the man... (full context)

Colonialism, Oppression, and Escape Theme Icon

...with beating these cows, he mostly withdrew from family life. Along with “the reader of W.C. Tuttle ,” he started cutting down the trees and sending the fruit to Port of Spain.... (full context)

“The man Mr Biswas now thought of as W.C. Tuttle ” cut open a pumpkin, dismantled the old electricity plant and decided to build a... (full context)

W.C. Tuttle ’s next project was buying a lorry and hiring it to the American army, which... (full context)

...with every paycheck. “He continued to plunder” amidst the house’s chaos. It turned out that W.C. Tuttle was selling whole trees and Govind whole lorry loads of fruit, and Mr Biswas felt... (full context)

...their children had a chance. They simply did not go to school for awhile, but W.C. Tuttle finally decided to take them himself, although they needed to get to school by 5:30... (full context)

...fell off a branch, and his widow wailed for days. However everyone forgot him after W.C. Tuttle took over driving. Later, Anand found Hari and his wife sitting gloomily at the dining... (full context)

Govind and W.C. Tuttle pursued other business opportunities: taxi-driving and opening a quarry, respectively. The widows started a chicken... (full context)

...secret; in the meantime, the widows’ children roasted a sheep in the woods, which infuriated W.C. Tuttle . He and Mr Biswas made their wives cook separately from the rest; Mr Biswas... (full context)

In Port of Spain, W.C. Tuttle played a gramophone incessantly and quarreled silently with Govind over parking space; Basdai started mediating... (full context)

...they were buying land, building mansions, and sending their children abroad to college. Govind and W.C. Tuttle continued to provide transport for the Americans and started growing wealthy. For the first time,... (full context)

...of Spain, Chinta and Govind were singing the Ramayana to drown out the sound of W.C. Tuttle ’s gramophone. After hours of this, when Mr Biswas would bang on their doors to... (full context)

W.C. Tuttle was “a useful ally” in these fights, in part because, like Mr Biswas, he saw... (full context)

W.C. Tuttle never mentioned Mr Biswas’s suits, car, or holiday, but after the Biswases had settled into... (full context)

...old but “full of room.” Shama called her family’s new house “small and nice,” and W.C. Tuttle underhandedly replied that it was “nice and small.” Since it was night, the Tuttles did... (full context)