Written by Sherwood Anderson in 1919, Winesburg, Ohio, a collection of short stories, allows us to enter the alternately complex, lonely, joyful, and strange lives of the inhabitants of the small town of Winesburg, Ohio. While each character finds definition through their role in the community, we are witness to the individual struggle each faces in trying to reconcile their secret life within. A perfect example of two characters are Alice Hindman and Enoch Robinson. The loneliness and illusion that encompass the lives of Alice Hindman and Enoch Robinson are the result of the discrepancy between their own capacity for intimacy and affection and the inability of others to truly understand them. In the short story, “Adventure”, Alice Hindman lives a life full of illusions and loneliness. Alice is a very quiet person on the exterior while a passion boils underneath. Alice Hindman is limited by life denying truths and guilty of allowing them to run her life. She believes in love and tradition absolutely. Alice’s blindness to the changing social mores limits her capacity to progress forward in life. She become consumed instead by the idea of herself and her memories. “It is not going to come to me. I will never find happiness. Why do I tell myself lies?” (Anderson 117). If she cannot have Ned, she will have no other. This extremity of emotion brings her to downfall. Her tendency to limit her own abilities by her nature of fixed habits or unmovable convictions isolates Alice from her community and distorts her features. She had once been a beautiful girl but grows into a woman with a head too large for her body. This is symbolic of her self-consumption, loneliness, and illusions. “I am becoming old and queer. If Ned comes he will not want me.” (Anderson 117). She grows to support the theme of life in death, living within her own imagination and memory to the point that her head is nearly expanding under the stress. She denies herself the reality of life by narrowing the experience to a dream world. By making absolute convictions and believing her own lies, Alice refuses to meld her worlds of dream and reality together. For example, Will Hurley, the man who walks her home from Church meetings, is an impostor into her narrowly constructed universe and thus she does not want to... ... middle of paper ... ...asy life. When a woman invades this life, he cannot compromise the two worlds once again and one must be destroyed. “Enoch Robinson is so open to the power of the feminine that he feels his own identity would be “submerged, drowned out” by any intimate relationship with a real woman.“ (Rigsbee 435). Of course, Enoch’s attempts at happiness would be destroyed but the story lies in the story of Enoch’s absolute hold on his particular truths which cannot be maintained. Enoch continued to live a lonely life, full of illusions. “I’m alone, all alone here. It was warm and friendly in my room but now I’m all alone.” (Anderson 178). Alice Hindman and Enoch Robinson were two perfect examples of how a person can live a life full of illusions and loneliness. The main cause of their distorted lives was due to the inability of others to truly understand them. For example, Ned and Alice’s friends didn’t understand Alice and Enoch’s wife and art friends didn’t understand them. This caused them to make their own lives interesting, which they did by creating illusions, which also encompassed unwanted loneliness from Alice and Enoch both.
Throughout the novel, crucial family members and friends of the girl that died are meticulously reshaped by her absence. Lindsey, the sister, outgrows her timidity and develops a brave, fearless demeanor, while at the same time she glows with independence. Abigail, the mother, frees herself from the barbed wire that protected her loved ones yet caused her great pain, as well as learns that withdrawing oneself from their role in society may be the most favorable choice. Ruth, the remote friend from school, determines her career that will last a lifetime. and escapes from the dark place that she was drowning in before. Thus, next time one is overcome with grief, they must remember that constructive change is guaranteed to
The final sentence of Winesburg, Ohio imprints the image of the town fading away as George Willard departs for the city. In fact, to view the novel in larger units, the final chapter is conspicuously named "Departure," and for any reader who bothers to take in the table of contents page before starting the book it is fairly easy to deduce how Winesburg, Ohio will end before it even begins. The notion of escape from the town of Winesburg is common throughout the book, and the intended destination for escape is usually some undefined "city." As a recurring element, however, it fits into a broader theme of the novel, that of a need for change in general. The two means through which change can occur can be classified as outburst and escape, with each occupying slightly different niches in the novel. Escape, being the culminating event of the novel, is clearly given prominence. But examination reveals that flight to the city is a largely flawed notion which is idealized by many but yields results which are actually embittering and not much better, empirically, than life in Winesburg. Outburst actually serves as a slightly more successful outlet for the anxieties of Winesburg's citizens.
In relation to the theme of isolation in this novel, Anderson uses this chapter to illustrate how the characters in the town of Winesburg should be perceived. Characters that are “grotesque” because they live their lives by a single “truth” that prevents them from maturing, developing, and ultimately growing into what Anderson...
James Wright’s “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” reveals a rather pessimistic narrative of the various lifestyles that are described, and also the inescapable destinies that hold for the townspeople. This utmost despair experienced through the people, forms an ambition that transcends onto their children; who are their last hope. Therefore “Autumn Begins”, the season that holds many possibilities for the townspeople, and even a glance into the past for others.
Winesburg, Ohio is a story of lost or nonexistent connections with other human beings. Every character throughout the text has a want, a need, to connect with someone or something. Each individual faces a life of isolation. In most cases the solitary nature of their lives is self-inflicted. This self-punishment seems to be the outcome of a deeply personal hatred towards the characters' perceived differences with the rest of the Winesburg population. This is the fact that elevates Winesburg, Ohio above the rest. It is the fact that every man hides a part of himself from the eyes of others.
"Were born alone we live alone die alone. Only through love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that were not alone” Orson Welles. In this novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck focuses on the loneliness of California ranch life in the 1930’s. One of the most important things in the life is to have a friend, without friends people will suffer from loneliness like in this novel, not everyone in the novel has the same connection and special friendship like George and Lennie’s. Of Mice and Men is the story about lonely men who travel from ranch to ranch not really communicating with other ranch hands. Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife all were lonely and dealt with their loneliness in different ways.
“‘A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is… I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick,” (Steinbeck 73). In this statement, Crooks, a character in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, divulges what effect loneliness can have on a human being. In the novel, the two main characters escape to a ranch where they must face the conflict that seems to follow them. Set in the 1930s during the Great Depression, Steinbeck brilliantly portrays the loneliness and suspicion that was common during the time. Much like in everyday life, we can see the way in which loneliness drives people to become isolated, crave companionship, and refuse to express emotion.
Alice Hoffman in her article, Summer; Shopping for a New Family, she explains that: “Ellen lives in fear of him, particularly when the men to whom he sells liquor come to her house and drink themselves into a frenzy.”(Hoffman 2). While entertaining some of his repugnant male friends, Ellen’s father, drunk and delusional, attacks her thinking Ellen is her mother. During the act Ellen exclaims, “I am Ellen. I am Ellen”(Gibbons 38) trying to convince her father during his fallacy that she is not her mother, followed by: “He pulls the evil back into hisself and Lord I run. Run down the road to Starletta. Now to the smoke coming out of the chimney against the night sky I run. Down the path in the darkness I gather my head and all that is spinning and flying out from me and wonder oh you just have to wonder what the world has come to”(Gibbons 38). Being put through all this drama makes Ellen a stronger person overall and encourages her to still search for that ideal family. In the beginning of the novel she states: “When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this way or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy”(Gibbons 1). During this time Ellen is in the present looking back onto her progression in life and shows her true feelings towards her father even before the horrific events that
Many times throughout the novel, Alice pretty much does what she wants, when she wants no matter what. Such as when Chris and Alice go to San Francisco. They are in total control of themselves, Alice never likes when her parents try and tell her something. A lot like teenagers today go against their parents will. Alice was always welcomed home whenever she wanted to go back.
Loneliness is a theme that is always visible when one reads Of Mice and Men, and the forms of loneliness discussed are still applicable to today’s life. Many of the characters admit to suffering from profound loneliness and it really captures the life people were living during the Great Depression. John Steinbeck uses this novel to uncover and chronicle the circumstances that cause human suffering during this era. Each character’s loneliness is relatable though, and can be empathized with even today.
Here, Alyss learned that she would need to live up to the real world responsibilities that people have to live up to everyday. Once in England, she was staying with a family that constantly tormented her about her claims of living in Wonderland, which caused her to lose faith in the place where she grew up and had to treat her beliefs and childhood as if they did not exist in order to live a normal life. Alyss even said, “Yes, it was a solution… Become just like everyone else.” (148) She began to accept the life of a normal girl and took on responsibilities like getting married. “If she’d had time to think about it, Alice might have stopped herself, considering the idea too whimsical. But the words had a force of their own, and only after she said them aloud did she realize just how appropriate the idea was. ‘Let’s have a masquerade.’” (172) At this point in time, Alyss Heart, or Alice Liddell, had just begun to take on the responsibility that any young adult would take at her
Many critics notice the connection between recurring themes such as seclusion and sexuality to differentiate each parallel and topic shown in Anderson’s work. Both stories are from Sherwood Anderson’s book Winesburg, Ohio that is set during the latter part of the 19th century. The stories “catalog Anderson’s negative reaction to the transformation of Ohi...
When looking at “Itinerary” by Eamon Grennan, one can see “a passion for invisibility, be a fly on the wall” is important because of the metonymy between feeling invisible and being a fly on the wall. This shows how they felt because they wanted to be or experience “invisibility” and insignificance. To add onto that “the pitchers ear, the child in the corner” shapes how you can be an introvert and listen to people rather than ever being in the center of attention. To expound, “You circle a space you’ve come back to, trying to find some comfort” this person is caught in a cycle that doesn't seem to end. Even though she can't seem to stop, they deep down wants to. To add to that, “something that says you’re at home now” they are hoping they can find
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story about a little girl who comes into contact with unpredictable, illogical, basically mad world of Wonderland by following the White Rabbit into a huge rabbit – hole. Everything she experiences there challenges her perception and questions common sense. This extraordinary world is inhabited with peculiar, mystical and anthropomorphic creatures that constantly assault Alice which makes her to question her fundamental beliefs and suffer an identity crisis. Nevertheless, as she woke up from “such a curious dream” she could not help but think “as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been ”.
...inal realization that she is growing up and that is normal, therefore, she accepts it. In brief, Alice in Wonderland is a book about growing up, and Alice definitely has grown up since the beginning of her journey and she has entered the adolescence phase when she rebels against everyone. Although she is not able to control herself when she gets angry, in other words she is behaving like a normal adolescent, she has gained a new “power” from this confusing experience: being a person with a voice to say something that matters.