Growing up, an analysis of isolation in winesburg, ohio.

The back cover to the Viking Critical Library Edition of 'Winesburg, Ohio' by Sherwood Anderson reads: "'Winesburg, Ohio' is Sherwood Anderson's 1919 volume of interconnected stories about an ordinary small town whose citizens struggle with extraordinary dreams and grotesque disappointments" (Back cover; Viking Critical Library Edition of 'Winesburg, Ohio' by Sherwood Anderson, edited by John H. Ferres, Viking Press, 1996). The novel by the North-American writer is a collection of short stories, about the life, emotions and feelings of the townspeople of a fictional 1890s town. Emotions that sustain throughout the whole of 'Winesburg, Ohio' are isolation and loneliness, "particularly as these emotions take their source from failure of affection or of creative expression" (Edwin Fussell,'Winesburg, Ohio': Art and Isolation; The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson edited by Ray Lewis White, Chapel Hill Books, 1966). Furthermore an unknown author states that "The figures of 'Winesburg, Ohio' usually personify a condition of psychic deformity which is the consequence of some crucial failure in their lives.

English: First edition title page

English: Map of the town Winesburg, Ohio from the ...

[Grocery store, Mt. Orab, Ohio, Route 74] (LOC)

Misogyny, inarticulateness, frigidity, God-infatuation, homosexuality, drunkenness - these are symptoms of their recoil from the regularities of human intercourse" (unknown author, http://www.studynet.com/novels/winesburg/isolation/).

Failure of communication, the incompetence of self-expression and the universal condition of loneliness and isolation are emotions that tie together Sherwood Anderson's compilation of short stories, as well as the tale of the book's main character George Willard, who in the end will learn to accept these emotions and thus achieves maturity. Being the town's newspaper reporter, George becomes the person of contact for most of the town's citizens who suffer from isolation and loneliness. Therefore I am going to analyse how isolation manifests itself within Sherwood Anderson's novel 'Winesburg, Ohio'. I will do so by showing how the...