Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio deals with the understanding of human nature and its faults. In each short story the character is increasingly oppressed by his inability to express himself to those in his society. They are all desperately trying to make contact with someone outside themselves and in attempting to do so gain a greater understanding of themselves. The opening chapter "The Book of the Grotesque," explains how each character in Winesburg lives by one or more truths, escaping from reality in these truths. The stories are unified by the symbolic use of hands. In each story when the character reaches a point of immense frustration due to the fact that they will never be able to convey his truth to another, he throws up his hands in frustration and inevitably has a moment of pure uncontrolled passion.
Anderson threads together the stories with the unifying element of hands. The first story of the novel is titled "Hands." In this story a middle-aged man named Wing Biddlebaum is a school teacher to young boys. In order to convey his passion for the subjects he obliviously caresses their heads and shoulders. Wing uses his hands to express his enthusiasm for teaching.
References to the hands of the main characters of the stories are made throughout the novel. In the next story, "Paper Pills," the doctor's knuckles are described as being "
extraordinarily large. When the hands were closed they looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large as walnuts fastened together by steel rods" (Anderson 35). Yet another reference is made to hands in "The Philosopher." Tom Willy's hands were said to have, "That flaming kind of birthmark that sometimes paints with red the faces of men and women had touched with red Tom Willy's fingers and the backs of his hands" (Anderson 49). In "Respectability," the only clean thing about Wash Williams is his hands. He is otherwise a grotesque, filthy man. The hands that are described as "sensitive and shapely" in no way describe the man. In each of these stories the symbolic nature of hands is used as a focal point for the story. The characters are known for their hands, it is that which sets them apart from the others in the town.
Though the novel is a collection of multiple short stories with new characters in each story, there are but two that stand out as being vivid, dynamic characters, and one that is repeated throughout many of the stories and is thought to be the main character.
1.Who is the narrator of the story? How is he or she connected to the story ( main character, observer, minor character)?
Saul is the main character in this novel, and he is also the narrator. Saul is important because he is a positive and reassuring figure who represents strength, power, and will. There are many things that we, the readers can learn from him.
Willie, the antagonist of the story accidentally makes Bobby overcome his fears and stand up to him. In a way Willie could be a protagonist because he helps Bobby overcome his fears. Willie is a crazy person that doesn't know what he is doing.
To have a good story, there must be good characters. Characters help the reader relate to the plot and struggle of the story, as well as creating a picture of the scenes on each page. But what exactly makes a character? What defines their personalities and relatableness to the reader? The way a character thinks, acts, and views the world are influenced, much like in the real world, by the people and places around them.
Firstly, the authors use the use of protagonists to show how they can present similar ideas in different ways. The two protagonists which the authors present are Keating from Dead Poets Society and McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest. These characters have readers intrigued and on their feet from the beginning. These characters always keep the readers guessing what they’re going to do next for example when Keating says “No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.” The Protagonists are presented as very different people but are in reality extremely similar and serve the same purpose. The authors present them as
Since the emergence of literature, thousands upon thousands of characters have graced our imaginations. From trouble maker Bart Simpson of the celebrated cartoon television series The Simpsons to Mr. Darcy of Jane Austen’s renowned novel Pride and Prejudice, the world has witnessed a plethora of characters in literature. Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, and Billy Collins, distinguished American poet, as well as countless other authors, share the utilization of characters in their literary works. The manner in which these authors use the literary element of characters varies immensely.
With the stories written these days, it is hard to tell who a complex character is because the stories in itself are so complex. A complex or dynamic character is a character in a story who changes. Some change throughout the course of the story, while other character change continuously. In order to create a complex character, an author must use contradiction. Contradiction between how the character feels and their actions. The character may appear a certain way, but may act opposite. In the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the protagonist is the complex character. Although his name is not known, a reader can determine how he is so complex.
Sherwood Anderson depicts all the characters throughout his 24 short stories as a grotesque. He prefaces most of the stories with the old writer’s definition of what it means to be a grotesque. This definition frames how the book is to be interpreted throughout the different stories. Anderson paints every character as a grotesque. However, he does not paint them in the same light. What may make one person a grotesque may not make another person a grote...
Each of these characters posses a different personality which contributes to the book as a whole. Throughout the book I felt connected to one character, that character was George. George and I share similar qualities and our lifestyles can relate. One major characteristic I found in George is his ability to take the initiative in whatever he is doing, therefore showing his sense of leadership qualities. This caught my eye automatically since I am the type of person to stand up and demonstrate my leadership to others.
Straight from the text of Hands, a story about a man and his paranoia of
As we progress though the novel, we a introduced to a variety of characters in the story like Rachel Turner
In stories, character complexly is a esential. The Shirley Jackson story “The Possibility of Evil” tells the story of a seventy-one year women named Miss Strangeworth. She’s an unusual character that stems off from status quo. Though it doesn’t mean she completely unique. Regardless, her desires, contrasting traits, consistency, and the ability to change make Mrs.Strangeworth a complex character.
I believe that drawing parallels between Winesburg, Ohio and the "Allegory of the Cave" helps provide insight into how the human race has wrestled with the problem of finding ways to act upon the higher ideals that reside in the character of mankind. Perhaps realizing that Man has contemplated this problem for thousands upon thousands of years, from the time of the ancient Greeks through the early twentieth century to the present, can assist human civilization to see the higher plane of existence, which Plato says is the "author of all things beautiful and right."
At this point there seems to be one main character (setting the scene, and the past scene as this is important to the story) but she mentions others as well, which will be involved later on, the first chapter seems to represent the foundation to what is going to happen later on.
Anderson makes effective use of fantasy to teach a moral lesson. He builds up the story in such a way that the reader does not care for the validity of the incidents. The moral lesson is that the proud and the disobedient must suffer.