Love and Death

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Love and Death

Love and death are often associated with each other in artistic depictions of human existence. In movies ‘love’ is sometimes said to be the only thing worth living for. In Christian literature death has been prophesized as the release from this hard world and the gateway to a world of ultimate peace and love. Sherwood Anderson in his book Winesburg, Ohio, changes the expected metaphor or connection between death and love.

In both stories Tom Willard plays a minimal part. He does however give an example of the connection between death and love in his own distorted manner. Tom prides himself, falsely, on the notion that he is an important man around town. He has always envisioned himself rising up in the political scene in Winesburg, or even becoming Governor. His wife, Elizabeth Willard is like death to him. In his mind, she looms over his dreams casting a shadow that he blames for his meager existence. In the story mother, he describes her presence to be “ghostly” and when he thinks of her he swears angrily (39). Sometimes when he is out in the street he turns to look behind him suddenly as if her ghost and the “spirit of the hotel” were their casting their shadow on him even in the streets.

Tom connects Elizabeth and the hotel to his inability to find success. His life is dominated by the affairs of the shabby hotel. The hotel is a legacy of Elizabeth’s father’s; she walks around in the hotel like it’s her coffin. So for Tom their presence is a reminder of his uneventful life. They are represent the death of his hopes and dreams. He at one point says, “Damn such a life, damn it” (39), in a context that places blame on Elizabeth and the hotel. It is as if with the death of Elizabeth you might see Tom picturing himself selling the hotel, and going to Ohio’s capital to become serious statesman.

In Mother, Elizabeth is looking for a different kind of liberation. Elizabeth’s dreams for her own life have long ago died. Yet she clings to life for the sake of one thought. She is trying to ensure that her son (George Willard) does not become a lifeless thing like herself.

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