Summary “Godliness” is a tale in four parts telling of the disintegration of the Bentley family. Jesse Bentley, the family patriarch, has, through hard work and thrift, become a wealthy and successful leader in the community. As the years have passed, however, Jesse, once a devout man, has come to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Godliness””Summary and Analysis Nobody Knows””
Summary In “Nobody Knows,” George Willard has the first of three significant encounters with women of Winesburg. In this particular story the young reporter has received a note from Louise Trunnion stating, “I’m yours if you want me.” As the tale opens, its setting is evening, as it is in […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Nobody Knows””Summary and Analysis The Philosopher””
Summary Doctor Parcival is one of the strangest of the grotesques in Winesburg. The dirty, middle-aged misanthrope arrived in the Ohio town about five years before the narrative begins and opened a medical practice. During his years in Winesburg, however, he has had few patients, yet he doesn’t seem to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Philosopher””Summary and Analysis Mother””
Summary We move after “Paper Pills” to a story about George Willard’s mother and thus get better acquainted with George, the central character of Winesburg, Ohio. Elizabeth Willard is an unhappy woman of forty-five; once she was a tall, dark, restless young girl who dreamed of joining an acting company […]
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Summary Like “Hands,” the story of Doctor Reefy and his paper pills describes a lonely old man and, again, there is emphasis on hands. The doctor’s paper pills are scraps of paper on which he writes some of his thoughts, “little pyramids of truth.” His big hands stuff these scraps […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Paper Pills””Summary and Analysis Hands””
Summary In his Memoirs, Anderson tells about the first reactions to Winesburg, Ohio when it was published in 1919. He recalls that it was “widely condemned,” described as “a sewer,” and its author was called “sex-obsessed.” He reports that a woman told him, “I read one of the stories and, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Hands””Summary and Analysis The Book of the Grotesque””
When Sherwood Anderson submitted his manuscript of Winesburg, Ohio to a publisher it had a different title; he had named it The Book of the Grotesque. Although the publisher changed the name of the book, he left the title of the Introduction the same, so Winesburg begins with a sketch […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Book of the Grotesque””Character List
Wing Biddlebaum The central character in “Hands.” Wing, an old man who lives on the outskirts of Winesburg, was driven from his former teaching position in Pennsylvania because townspeople suspected him of homosexual overtures to his young male students. Jesse Bentley The family patriarch in “Godliness.” This hard-hearted father of […]
Read more Character ListAbout Winesburg, Ohio
In his Memoirs published in 1942, a year after his death, Anderson remarked that Winesburg “has become a kind of American classic and has been said by many critics to have started a kind of revolution in American short-story writing.” Anderson must have written those words with pleasure for he […]
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