George Willard, he felt, belonged to the town, typified the town, represented in his person the spirit of thee town. For example, in “Queer” Elmer Cowley, unable to make friends after moving to Winesburg, feels that he’s always strange or abnormal, somehow different from other people: Most of the tales recount characters who have internal hungers and desires-ranging from pedophilia and God’s approval to fame, wealth, and human companionship-that they struggle to submerge in the belief that no one else harbors such secrets. Behind a cold exterior the most extraordinary events transpired in her mind. Here, for example, is the narrator’s description of Kate Swift in “The Teacher”:ĭay by day as she worked in the schoolroom or walked in the streets, grief, hope, and desire fought within her. With its focus on the psychological and biological impulses of its characters, Anderson’s book illustrates the beginning of this shift. As realism developed, it shifted into naturalism, with an emphasis on impersonal social, economic, and biological forces on individuals. Realism, which developed in France in the second half of the nineteenth century, emphasized the influence of social environment on characters.

The book is also significant historically for its place in the development of American realism and naturalism. Stylistically, Anderson influenced Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. The book is significant historically for its use of common speech to portray its characters, the common people of Winesburg. The unifying thread throughout is the coming-of-age story of George Willard, an 18-year-old news reporter who dreams of leaving the confines of his home town and making his way in the larger world as a writer. Sherwood Anderson’s masterpiece, Winesburg, Ohio, is a collection of 23 interrelated sketches-Anderson calls them “tales”-that portray life in a Midwestern town in the early years of the twentieth century.

Some were amusing, some almost beautiful. The citizens of Winesburg are described obliquely as 'grotesques,' but as the introductory chapter makes clear, 'The grotesques were not all horrible. Thus Winesburg tells the story of the townspeople's loneliness and alienation in parallel with the tale of George's own coming of age.

The inarticulate and lonely citizens of Winesburg, each with his or her own secret tale to tell, frequently relate those tales to, or through their interactions with, the character of George Willard, a young Winesburg citizen on the cusp of manhood with dreams of becoming a writer. Published in 1919, and listed on the Modern Library roster of the 20th century's 100 greatest novels in English, Winesburg, Ohio presents a series of loosely related character studies of the inhabitants of a fictional Midwestern town that together form a novel of unusual unity and vision. Download cover art Download CD case insert Winesburg, Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson