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小城畸人

Short Summary

Winesburg, Ohio begins with a sort of prologue, in which an old writer imagines all the people he has known as "grotesques," warped in their pursuits of various truths. A series of stories ensues, each concerned with a single resident of Winesburg. The first, entitled "Hands," describes Wing Biddlebaum, a recluse with remarkable hands that he cannot control, who has fled from false accusations of molesting a boy in another town. The second, "Paper Pills," is about Doctor Reefy, an aging m edical man who marries one of his young patients, only to have her die six months later. In the third, "Mother," we meet Elizabeth Willard, the mother of the book's central character, George Willard, who is a young reporter for the local paper. Elizabeth is a sick woman, trapped in an unhappy marriage, and she imagines herself locked in a struggle with her husband for influence over George.In the next story, "The Philosopher," the eccentric Doctor Parcival imagines that a lynch mob is after him, and tells George Willard the secret of life: "Everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified." In "Nobody Knows," George goes out into the fields and sleeps with a girl named Louise Trunnion, only to feel guilty about it afterward. The next four stories, all lumped under the heading "Godliness," depict Jesse Bentley, a wealthy farmer who imagines himself a Biblical figure chosen by God. His daughter, Louise Bentley, receives no love from him, and stumbles into a loveless marriage. Her son, David Hardy, is sent to live with his grandfather on the old man's farm, and Jesse takes the boy out into the forest in search of a message from God. He finds no message, however, and succeeds only in traumatizing the boy so much that David runs away from Winesburg forever.In "A Man of Ideas," the next story, a talkative man named Joe Welling successfully courts a woman whose father and brother are notorious thugs. The following story,

"Adventure," depicts the loneliness of Alice Hindman, an unmarried woman whose true love (as she considers him) left Winesburg years ago and has never returned. "Respectability" portrays Wash Williams, the filthy, ugly telegraph operator in Winesburg who despises women because of his wife's infidelity and his mother-in-law's treachery. "The Thinker," tells the story of a brooding young man named Seth Richmond who feels that he does not belong in Winesburg. At the end of a long evening with Helen White, the daughter of the Winesburg banker, he tells her that he plans to leave town for good. "Tandy" tells the story of a little girl named Tandy Hard whose first name comes from a drunken man's description of the perfect woman. In "The Strength of God," a minister named Curtis Hartman is tempted into lust by the sight of Kate Swift, a local schoolteacher. His temptation passes when he sees her, one snowy night, praying naked. "The Teacher" takes place on the same night, and depicts Kate Smith's attraction to George Willard--her simultaneous desires to teach and embrace him--and her sudden guilty flight from his office, which leaves him confused. "Loneliness" details Enoch Robinson's move from Winesburg to New York, where he populates his apartment with imaginary friends, only to have them move out when he tries to tell his female neighbor about them.In "An Awakening," George Willard goes out walking one night and has what he thinks is an epiphany. He tries to tell Belle Carpenter, the girl he has been seeing, about it, but another one of her suitors beats him up, and the magic of the evening slips away. "Queer" depicts the resentment that Elmer Cowley, the son of a store owner, feels toward Winesburg and George Willard because he thinks that the town considers his family to be odd. The story ends with Elmer beating up George and hopping a train out of town. In "The Untold Lie," a farmhand named Hal Winters asks another farmhand named Ray Pearson for advice about whether to get married, causing Ray to reflect on his marriage, which he does with disgust. "Drink" portrays a genial, happy young man named Tom Foster and his first experience with drunkenness.

In "Death," Elizabeth Willard and Doctor Reefy spend time together and begin to fall in love, as she slips toward death. She dies, finally, and George decides to quit Winesburg forever. In "Sophistication," he and Helen White go out walking together on the night of the county fair, and run around like children as evening falls on Winesburg. Both are moving on from their small town, as Helen is going to college, and in the final story, "Departure," George Willard boards a train and leaves Winesburg for good, letting his life there "become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood."

Characters

George Willard - A young man who works as a reporter in Winesburg, Ohio. Despite the fact that he is one of the least developed of the major characters, he occupies the central role in the book. As a result of either chance meetings or other people's decisions to confide in him, George is the figure who links many of the novel's disparate stories together.

Wing Biddlebaum - A sensitive ex-schoolteacher who was accused of molesting one of his male pupils in a town near Winesburg. His hands are amazingly dexterous, but he has difficulty controlling them, and they tend to wander where they don't belong.

Doctor Reefy - An aging doctor with a declining practice. He marries a young female patient, but she dies after less than a year. He also develops a close relationship with Elizabeth Willard during her last months.

Elizabeth Willard - George Willard's mother, and Tom Willard's wife. She lives in the family's run-down boarding house, where she is constantly ill and has become an invalid. She displays desperate impotence in her dealings with other people, including her husband and son.

Tom Willard - George Willard's father, a middle-aged man with frustrated political ambitions.

Doctor Parcival - A doctor who enjoys chatting with George and hinting about a criminal past. He suffers from paranoia, believing that the secret of life is "that everyone in the world is Christ."

Louise Trunnion - A local girl with whom George Willard has one of his first sexual experiences.

Jesse Bentley - A wealthy farmer, and a deeply religious man with a brutal, Old Testament sensibility and tendency to terrorize his family.

Louise Bentley - Jesse Bentley's daughter. A lonely woman with a vicious temper, she is estranged from her father, and marries young out of a craving for love. Her marriage is not a success.

David Hardy - Louise Bentley's son and Jesse Bentley's grandson. He goes to live on his grandfather's farm while an adolescent, and ends up terrorized by his grandfather's religious zeal and desire to make contact with God.

Joe Welling - The agent for Standard Oil in Winesburg, he is a man who seizes on strange ideas and talks about them for hours on end. He is compared to a volcano, outwardly calm but always ready to explode with some strange fascination.

Alice Hindman - A woman in her twenties who once felt deep love for a man who eventually left Winesburg behind. She is now gradually and unwillingly becoming an old maid.

Wash Williams - The Winesburg telegraph operator. A fat, filthy man, he despises the

world--particularly women, whom he calls "bitches."

Seth Richmond - A sensitive, deep-thinking young man, and a friend of George Willard.

Tandy Hard - A young woman whose first name comes from a drunkard's speech about the perfect woman.

Curtis Hartman - The successful, popular minister of the Presbyterian Church. He struggles with the sexual temptation of peeping in at Kate Swift's window while he writes his sermons.

Kate Swift - A Winesburg schoolteacher. She sees a "spark of genius" in George Willard and tries to encourage it, but she is also looking for love, and briefly allows him to embrace her in the newspaper office.

Enoch Robinson - A man from Winesburg who moves to New York and, in the grip of terrible loneliness, becomes slightly unhinged and populates his apartment with imaginary people.

Belle Carpenter - The daughter of a bookkeeper, she goes on walks with George Willard and even kisses him--mainly, however, to arouse the jealousy of the man she really wants, a local bartender named Handby.

Elmer Cowley - The son of a store owner. He feels terribly out of place in Winesburg, as if everyone is laughing at him, and is prone to hysterical outbursts. Two of these outbursts are directed at George Willard, who is intrigued by Elmer's personality.

Ray Pearson - A married farm hand, about fifty years old, with a good reputation. He works alongside Hal Winters.

Hal Winters - A farm hand who works alongside Ray Pearson, and who has a reputation as a "bad one," for his fights and relationship with women.

Tom Foster - A quiet, likable boy who moves to Winesburg from Cincinnati. He decides to get drunk one night, and finds it a remarkable experience.

Helen White - A local girl, who is romantically connected to both Seth Richmond and George Willard. Study Questions

What role does George Willard play in Winesburg, Ohio?

Answer for Study Question 1 >>

Winesburg, Ohio sits uneasily on the divide between a novel and a collection of short stories. Although each of the sections in the book stands on its own, they all center on the Ohio town of the title, and they overlap one another in various ways. George Willard unifies the book, appearing in fifteen out of the twenty-four stories, sometimes as the main character, but more often as a confidant--someone to whom unhappy, alienated people such as Wing Biddlebaum and Wash Williams can relate their troubles. In these stories, he is a listener, standing in for the reader--a conduit through whom the reader receives other people's stories. As the book progresses toward its end, George moves out of the shadows and develops into an adult, leaving behind the superficialities of youth. By the end of Winesburg, Ohio, he is ready to leave his home town behind, and with his departure the reader leaves as well.

Discuss the role of religion in Winesburg, Ohio.

Answer for Study Question 2 >>

Out of the many stories in Anderson's book, two in particular focus on the relationship between God and man. "Godliness" and "The Strength of God" offer starkly contrasting views of religious life, and particularly of the way God communicates with man. In "Godliness," Jesse Bentley comes to see himself as a kind of Old Testament figure, the founder of a "new race of men sprung from himsel f." He believes he is chosen by God to prosper greatly, and anxiously looks for a sign of divine favor. He thinks he finds this sign in his only grandson, David Hardy. But when Jesse attempts to confirm God's gift, by taking the boy out into the woods and waiting for a sign or a miracle, the boy feels only fear, as if "a new and dangerous person" has taken possession of his grandfather's body. In "The Strength of God," the Reverend Curtis Hartman feels that God has abandoned him by allowing him to be grippe d by sexual temptation. In a moment of utter despair, however, Hartman is allowed a glimpse of the divine (or so he

thinks) in the praying figure of the very woman who has been the source of his temptation. The contrast is clear: Jesse Bentley looks desperately for God and finds nothing, while Curtis Hartman is on the verge of abandoning God when he has a miraculous vision.

How is marriage portrayed in Winesburg, Ohio?

Answer for Study Question 3 >>

There are noticeably few happy people in Anderson's Ohio town, and even fewer happily married people. In particular, his female characters are largely trapped in unpleasant, sterile marriages, yearning desperately for love. Elizabeth Willard hates her husband, for instance, while Louise Bentley bitterly regrets her decision to get married. Jesse Bentley's nameless wife dies in childbirth, succumbing to poor health induced by her husband's slave-driving management of their farm. The men, too, such as Ray Pearson in "The Untold Lie," are often dissatisfied with their marriages and feel trapped by the obligation to stand by their wives. Wash Williams endures the infidelity of his wife and develops an abiding loathing for all women. The only happy couple seems to be Doctor Reefy and his much younger wife in "Paper Pills"--and their happiness is cut short by her death. Bliss, Anderson seems to suggest, is necessarily fleeting, and marriage becomes something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Discuss the portrayal of women in Winesburg, Ohio.

Compare and contrast Seth Richmond and Elmer Cowley, particularly in their attitudes toward Winesburg and George Willard.

Discuss the role of loneliness in the book. Who is lonely? Who isn't?

Are there any happy characters in Winesburg, Ohio? Who are they? Defend your answer.

Discuss the overall structure of the stories. Why do you think Anderson arranged them the way he did? Discuss George Willard's relationships to women, particularly his mother, Kate Swift, and Helen White. To what extent are the characters "grotesques"? How does this image play out throughout the book? What word is used to describe the people whom the old writer sees pass before his eyes in the introductory section?

(A) "Bizarre"

(B) "Grotesque"

(D) "Rustic"

What is Wing Biddlebaum's former profession?

(A) Writer

(B) Animal trainer

(D) Minister

What does Doctor Reefy do with his little scraps of paper?

(A) Sends them to publishers

(B) Puts them in his coat pockets

(D) Reads them to sparrows and blue jays

What kind of business does the Willard family run?

(A) A grocery store

(B) A tavern

(D) A boarding house

Why is Doctor Parcival afraid that he will be lynched?

(A) Because he raped a local girl

(B) Because he refused to come give medical attention to a girl who died in the street

(D) Because he molested George Willard

When George Willard says "She hasn't got anything on me. Nobody knows," he is talking a bout

(A) Louise Trunnion

(B) Elizabeth Willard

(D) Kate Swift

Why does Jesse Bentley inherit his father's farm?

(A) Because he agrees to marry Elizabeth Willard

(B) Because his four brothers die in the Civil War

(D) Because his sister dies of cancer

Jesse Bentley's grandson is named

(A) David Hardy

(B) George Willard

(D) Seth Richmond

Why is Louise Bentley treated badly by the girls she lives with as an adolescent?

(A) Because she is ugly

(B) Because she marries their brother

(D) Because she does well in school and they do badly

What does David Hardy do after he hits Jesse Bentley in the head with a rock?

(A) He runs away and leaves Winesburg

(B) He makes sure the old man is dead, and buries the body in the woods

(D) He prays to God for forgiveness

What kind of team does Joe Welling organize and manage in Winesburg?

(A) Football

(B) Baseball

(D) Bowling

What happened to the man Alice Hindman was in love with?

(A) He died

(B) He married another girl in Winesburg

(D) He left town and stopped writing to her

What does Wash Williams hate?

(A) Women

(B) Blacks

(D) The Willard family

With which girl does Seth Richmond go out walking?

(A) Kate Swift

(B) Helen White

(D) Belle Carpenter

Who gives Tandy Hard her first name?

(A) Her father

(B) Her uncle

(D) Wash Williams

Who does the Reverend Curtis Hartman see when he looks through the window in the bell tower?

(A) Helen White

(B) His wife

(D) George Willard

What is Kate Swift's profession?

(A) Prostitute

(B) Writer

(D) Secretary

What is special about the people who inhabit Enoch Robinson's New York apartment?

(A) They are imaginary

(B) They are all women

(D) They are criminals

Who does Belle Carpenter go out walking with at night?

(A) George Willard

(B) Ed Handby

(D) Seth Richmond

What does Elmer Cowley think that other people call him and his family behind their backs?

(B) "Queer"

(D) "Fools"

What does Ray Pearson feel an urge to tell Hal Winters?

(A) That he should leave Winesburg

(B) That he shouldn't have any children

(D) That he should not get married

What does Tom Foster do because he "wanted to learn things?"

(A) Lose his virginity

(B) Kill a man

(D) Go to college

With whom does Doctor Reefy find himself falling in love?

(A) Elizabeth Willard

(B) George Willard

(D) Kate Swift

What did Elizabeth Willard's father leave her?

(B) Eight hundred dollars

(D) Nothing

On the night of the Winesburg County Fair, who does George Willard go to see?

(A) Belle Carpenter

(B) Seth Richmond

(D) Helen White