A discussion of the major themes of the stories in “Winesburg Ohio”, by Sherwood Anderson, and how they relate to the characters in the text and to the town itself.
This paper reviews the book, “Winesburg Ohio”, a well-crafted work of art by the author, Sherwood Anderson, about the alternately complex, lonely, joyful, and strange lives of the inhabitants of the small town of Winesburg, Ohio. It analyzes the various motifs of Winesburg, Ohio under different sectional headings in order to view how characters function in the set of stories remarkably woven by the author. It covers the themes of loneliness, inhibition, lack of communication, and isolation, and also tries to show the connection of George Willard to these themes and the town.
“The first chapter is called “Hands” , and involves the sad story of Wing Biddlebaum. Because Biddlebaum is accused of having molested students that he taught, his hands embody the shame that he carries. Fearing that the presence of his hands will be misinterpreted, Biddlebaum hides his expressive hands. Because a person’s physical hands are used to communicate feeling, Hands is a tale about one of the sources of isolation, the inability to communicate feelings. Paper Pills is the second chapter of the novel and deals with another cause of isolation, the inability to communicate thought. Because Doctor Reefy is afraid of communicating directly to another person, he writes his thoughts on little pieces of paper to prevent his thoughts from being misinterpreted.”