Isolation in Winesburg, Ohio

I’ve always had some trouble “getting into” short stories or collections of short stories because I felt that I didn’t have time to become connected to the characters and really care about them. To me, Winesburg, Ohio has felt like a stepping stone between the novel and the short story that I truly enjoyed. Maybe “enjoyed” is an overstatement. It’s not an overstatement actually, just not the right word. I “connected with” many of the chapters in the sort of emotional literary way that I generally think of as good. But they were depressing. The theme of isolation that, I felt, pervaded the novel was made particularly striking to me through Anderson’s strong use of characterization.

Wing Biddlebaum, one of the first figures characterized by Anderson, it one of the most sad and isolated characters. He is separated from the rest of society, not by some defect of personality but by a physical ailment, his hands. They scare away other people, to the point that he seems to view them as their own entity out of his control. The second character, Doctor Reefy, also seems to live a very lonely life, only able to be expressive when he is alone, with his scraps of paper. This is very sad. Yes. Yes it is sad. It is sad that many people cannot seem to communicate outside the means they’re comfortable with, even if heavily intoxicated- not to say that Doctor Reefy is intoxicated. It’s just hypothetical. But he would probably still just resort to his pieces of paper.

One of the most touching stories to me was that of Tom, Elizabeth, and George Williard. Whenever Tom’s character was mentioned, I was reminded heavily of Willie Stark in demeanor; Tom is a brutish figure who is eager to make his way in politics, whose wife gradually becomes a diminished figure in their relationship and even their home. He has big dreams for his son, just as Willie has dreams for his son, Tom. Tom of Winesburg, Ohio heavily pushes a successful career for his son George. The story kept drawing my attention to Elizabeth’s lost life, the spark that she used to have but no longer possesses and suggests that she is trying to regain the spark vicariously through George. It was like a breath of relief to me when she didn’t kill her family, although the ending to their vignette wasn’t quite cheerful.

Alice Hindman’s story in “Adventure” was another fascinating but extremely depressing tale. The idea of her waiting for years and years for a man that I know will never return to her is almost inexpressibly sad and also sort of universal, as all of us at some time have been in a similar situation, unwilling to face the truth or desperate for some kind of closure. When she breaks down and acts out, I felt like I was looking into a mirror (except without the nudity). The isolation that permeates many of Anderson’s tales is a feeling that feels very relate able to me and likely many of his other readers.