The Grotesque

In Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, reporter George Willard meets many characters who are described as grotesque, meaning "that each of them seized on one truth and tried to live by it, but the truth which each embraced became a falsehood."

In this article, I will look at three example of Sherwood Anderson's concept of the grotesque not just from his own work, but the work of two other authors as well.

Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio

One character from Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio who comes to mind as representing his definition of grotesqueness would be Alice Hindman from the short story "Adventure." 

In this story, Alice Hindman had once been in a relationship with a man named Ned Currie and the two seemed to genuinely love each other. Eventually, Ned Currie planned on going to Cleveland in the hopes of getting hired by a newspaper, and Alice wanted to go with him. 

While Ned was puzzled, but touched by this, he forbade Alice from coming with him, telling her that "you may be sure I'll let you do no such thing. As soon as I get a good job I'll come back. For the present you'll have to stay here. It's the only thing we can do" (pg. 262). 

Alice and Ned would go on to spend one more night together before he left, and Alice would stay in Winesburg under the belief that he would return. When Cleveland didn't work out for Ned, he moved to Chicago where he was able to start a new life. 

While he did think about Alice at first, even writing to her, he would eventually meet another woman and forget about her completely. Alice, meanwhile, hung on to the belief that Ned would come back to her and never pursued a relationship with anyone else, to the point that she would tell herself when other men expressed interest in her that "I am his wife and shall remain his wife whether he comes back or not" (pg. 263). 

Over the years, Alice did indeed continue to wait for Ned, with only her job at the store giving her anything to look forward to and would eventually start to suffer from loneliness. By the time Alice turned twenty-seven, "her desire had grown vague. She did not want Ned Currie or any other man. She wanted to be loved, to have something answer the call that was growing louder and louder within her" (pg. 265). 

While Alice does try to overcome her loneliness by becoming more involved with her church and even allowing a drug clerk to walk her home, Alice is shown to never truly move on and becoming "grotesque" because of it.

The Sculptor's Funeral by Willa Cather

Another character that embodies Anderson's definition of grotesqueness is the lawyer Jim Laird from The Sculptor's Funeral by Willa Cather. 

Jim Laird fits the image of the grotesque because, as he states when defending Harvey Merrick from the other townspeople at his funeral, "I meant to be a great man. I came back here to practice, and I found you didn't in the least want me to be a great man. You wanted me to be a shrewd lawyer" (pg. 176–177). 

Jim Laird and Harvey Merrick both set out to fulfill their dreams, but unlike Harvey, Jim Laird chose to come back to his hometown where he feels that he was morphed by the townspeople into becoming a corrupt lawyer. 

While Jim Laird seems to acknowledge what he has become, he shows no sign of changing, for the very next day after he defended Harvey, he got drunk and would later die from a cold while "driving across the Colorado mountains to defend one of Phelp's sons who had got into trouble out there by cutting government timber" (pg. 177). 

Jim Laird was still one of the few people in the story to express any sort of respect towards Harvey Merrick and his accomplishment of becoming a successful sculptor.

Editha by William Dean Howells

One final character who embodies Anderson's definition of grotesqueness is the title character Editha by William Dean Howells. 

In this story, Editha clings to the ideal that war is glorious and wants her fiancé George Gearson to go to war to prove his love for her. In her mind, "if he could do something worthy to have won her - be a hero, her hero - it would be even better than if he had done it before asking her" (pg. 354). 

It's made clear that George doesn't want to go to war but goes through with it. Unsurprisingly, George Gearson ends up killed in the line of duty and Editha keeps her promise to him that she will visit his mother. 

Once they meet, George's mother calls her out for thinking that war is glorious, telling her that "when [women] give their men up to their country. They think they'll come marching back, somehow, just as gay as they went" (pg. 361). 

For believing that war is glorious, Editha is ultimately responsible for the death of George and would have also been responsible for the soldiers George might have killed had he not been killed first.

References/External Links

1. Levine, Robert S. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Volume C, 1865–1914. New York ; London, W. W. Norton & Company. Copyright, 2017, pp. 354, 361.

2. Levine, Robert. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Volume D, 1914–1945. New York Etc., W. W. Norton & Company. Copyright, 2017, pp. 176–177, 262–265.

3. The Book of the Grotesque (CliffsNotes)