霸气工会名字Winesburg, Ohio

2020年12月18日发(作者：左漠野)
Winesburg, Ohio

By Sherwood Anderson

Summary and Analysis


Summary and AnalysisOriginal TextPrevious section
Summary and Analysis
Summary and Analysis

We move after Pillsto 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 and something out of herself to all citizens of
Winesburg, however, said she was
they saw her on dates with traveling men who were staying at her father's hotel. Elizabeth,
frustrated and bored, found some release in sexual relations with these men and eventually with
Tom Willard, a handsome fellow with a military step and a black mustache. Finally, Elizabeth
married Tom, who turned out to be a big talker and a dabbler in village politics, but an ineffectual
provider. The hotel, under his management, became increasingly dusty, faded, and run-down.

In loneliness and despair, Elizabeth turned her dreams on her son George hoping that he might
allowed to express something for us both.
feel about the young reporter, that perhaps he can communicate their suppressed needs, desires,
and insights. In wanting him to tell their story, they are like Pirandello's characters — in search of
an author.

The characters sense in George, however, an uncertainty about his own goals. Wing Biddlebaum
tells the boy,
action, what little there is, begins with Elizabeth's jealous suspicions that George is going to be the
kind of man his father wants him to be, a hustling success. In her prayers, Elizabeth begs God not
to let George become a
and successful either.
stop dreaming at the newspaper office, Elizabeth feels such rage that she thinks of stabbing Tom
with her sewing scissors.

In the smoldering conflict between the ideals held by Tom and Elizabeth, Sherwood Anderson
dramatizes the clash of American materialism and artistic values which the author felt in his own
life. Like George Willard, Anderson had a rather charming but shiftless father. Like George,
Anderson had a mother who died because of hard work and poverty when her son was nineteen.
Like George, Anderson had to make a choice between being a sharp, successful businessman or a
literary artist. But, unlike George, Anderson did not make his choice until that day when he, at the
age of thirty-six walked out of his factory office to become a writer. George states his decision
when he says,
think.

Elizabeth, realizing that she has won, wants to cry out with joy, but both she and George are too
embarrassed to communicate with each other openly. In this scene, at the end of the story,
Anderson wrote for the two characters exactly the same dialogue he had written earlier in the
narrative. This repetition suggests, again, the monotony and loneliness of human beings, but the
fact that George is going to try to escape to a bigger world is encouraging.

Some critics have said that
argued that Elizabeth's love for her son is Oedipal. It seems more likely, however, that Anderson is
portraying a frustrated dreamer who hopes that her son can discover the opportunities and outlets
for creative impulses which she couldn't find. Elizabeth's unhappiness and helplessness is sensed
when she watches from her bedroom window a series of battles in a feud between the town baker
and a stray cat. We are told, when she was alone, and after watching a prolonged and
ineffectual outburst on the part of the baker, Elizabeth Willard put her head down on her long
white hands and wept . . . It [the contest between the man and the cat] seemed like a rehearsal of
her own life, terrible in its vividness.
that the twisted, gnarled apples are often the sweetest.

The first draft of the Winesburg, Ohio manuscript shows that Anderson actually wrote
sixth but, in preparing his manuscript for publication, he made it the third of his stories. Thus he
has introduced his pervasive theme of frustration in the first three stories: concerns a
person unable to communicate his desire to help others,
communicate his ideas, and
In this little village that seems to be for Anderson a microcosm of the world, the author shows in
case after case that humans must live and die alone.
STORY 4 - 'MOTHER'

SETTING

The setting is the town of Winesburg. The disorderly old hotel, owned by Tom Willard has been
described and used as the setting for the action.

CHARACTER LIST

Elizabeth Willard - The mother of George is a listless and unhappy woman, whose only passion
and possession is her son.

George Willard - The son, has been shown as a young lad, in his story still living with his parents,
in the hotel, he goes out in the world to become a writer.

Tom Willard - He is George’s father, a graceful man who has a military step, he is forever angry
with his wife, and the hotel he is supposed to take care of.

CONFLICT

Protagonist - Elizabeth Willard is the protagonist here since her obsessive love towards her son
has been primarily discussed.

Antagonist - To Elizabeth, her husband is the antagonist, as he shows signs of taking her son away
from her.

Climax - The climax in the story is reached when the mother overhears her son talking to his
father, and is filled with anger at his duplicity and betrayal of love towards the mother.

Outcome - This feeling brings about a demonic behavior in the mother, who imagines herself
slaying her husband for having snatched her son away from her.






THEMES

The theme in the story is the obsessive, manic love of mother for her son, which can drive itself to
murder, if need be.

MOOD

The hotels disorderly unkempt look brings a feeling of desolation in the reader but the mother's
intense possessive nature is alarming and with the shift in the scene the mood too changes to a
diabolic state of mind.

STORY SUMMARY

Elizabeth Willard is George Willard's mother and wife of Tom Willard. She manages their
disorderly hotel with disinterest and slovenliness. Her husband, who is a brisk militant-looking
man, tries as best as possible to put his wife and the hotel out of his mind. His passion is village
politics and he dreams of becoming the governor.

Elizabeth shares an unexpressed bond of sympathy with her son. Though their communion,
outwardly, is just a formal thing, deep within; she is fiercely possessive of him.

One evening while Elizabeth is ill in bed, though her son does not come to visit her alarmed and
anxious as she expects him to, she goes over to his room to check on him and overhears him
talking to her husband. Her husband, in his wish to see his son succeed in life, secures a position,
for him on the 'Winesburg Eagle' the local newspaper.

The realization that her husband and her son have a congenial relationship maddens her and
pushes her to a decision of killing her husband.

She then plans out her act. Her stage background goads her to dress herself up for her final act.
She imagines herself all beautiful and stately stealing noiselessly with a pair of scissors in her
hand.

Just then George comes up to her room and begins talking to her from his words she realizes that
there is no great bonding between father and son. The joy in her heart is inexpressible. But very
mundanely, she merely tells him to go out and take a walk to freshen himself.

Notes

This deeply psychological story reveals the semi- fanatic obsession of mother for her only son, an
obsession that would even take recovers to murder.

Elizabeth Willard's life is one of drudgery and stagnation. Against this is her husband's forceful,
go- getting personality, which jars with the slovenliness of his wife. The wife is thus delegated to
the far recesses of her husband's life. The picture of Elizabeth is all the more pathetic, considering
and comparing it to her girlhood flamboyance and rebellious nature. Her need to express herself
and her desire to fulfill her restlessness leads her to an unwanted marriage with Tom Willard.

Elizabeth's obsession of the stage serves her in her bid to get rid of her husband. She is unable to
visualize her son having a close relationship with anyone else, and especially not with her husband
whom she hates. This rage pushes her to consider murdering her husband. Her desire to actually
commit the crime, but in a theatrical get-up, shows the extent of her mad obsession over her son.
Her imagination is vivid and fearsome -
appear, coming out of the shadows, stealing noiselessly.

However, one sentence from her son, about no one understanding him,
about it

The myth of a happy loving family is attacked in this story. The outward lack of communication
between parent and son in clothed with deep-rooted desires and psychological fears of being
unloved. The extent, to which the mother would go to keep her son to herself, is hair-raising and
stupefying. Such behavior of the mother, along with the placid talk and outward demeanor goes to
make the relationship an insane obsession.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

Elizabeth Willard - Elizabeth has only one son, George, with whom she is obsessively attached.
Her marriage to Tom Willard has given no contentment, and she has grown into a cantankerous
old woman.

Elizabeth's love for George is of an obsessive nature. She cannot bear the thought of sharing him
even with her own husband, who is after all, George's own father. Overhearing George talking to
his father fills her with such rage that she even considers murdering her husband to get rid of him
and thus keeping George only for himself. Her craziness even pushes on to imagining herself
dressed to the gilt while murdering her husband. These theatrics merely convey her manic
obsession for her son. It is really a relief for her to hear George conveying that he had not got
much advice from his father. The mother has got her son back, and needn't worry about him
leaving her for anyone else.

PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

The novel begins with an exposition of the mother's intense love for her son, which turns almost
violent as the plot develops. The climax is reached when she overhears her son opening his heart
out to his father. Her feelings then reach a level of mania. The story ends almost anti-climatically
when she finds her son speaking her problems finally to her.

In this story, the mother's diabolic thoughts, as she imagines herself killing her husband, is the,
main scene. This scene has been detailed out explicitly, and the overrun imagination has been
elaborated upon. The final scene is a little anti-climatic yet it relieves the reader's mind.

THEMES - THEME ANALYSIS

The theme of possessiveness and especially a mother's over possessiveness has been beautifully
described. The son is no integral part of the mother's life, that she is not even willing to share him
with her own husband who is the boy's own father. Such possessiveness and obsession can tilt the
mind towards any foolhardy behavior. This lonely woman's rage is so strong, that it pushes her to
attempt murder on her husband.

For the son however, both parents are of equal importance, which is why he had asked for his
father's advice too. The mother is consoled only when she hears that her husband has been of no
help to her son. Her rule over her son has not been snatched away.