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Grotesque In Sherwood Anderson's Ridiculous, O

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Grotesque In Sherwood Anderson's Ridiculous, O
“Ridiculous” and “Bizarre” are words used to describe the meaning of grotesque. Typically if you are considered grotesque you are strange in a ridiculous way. This explains Sherwood Anderson’s collection of short stories: Winesburg, Ohio. These stories range from the lives of children, men, and women. Each character in the novel is considered as grotesque because of the way he or she views life and their concept of truth. This concept of truth, an absolute truth searched for by all of the people in the novel, is the author’s way of observing the effect of truth and how it makes the characters incomplete, ruined, and unable to live in anything but a fantasy lifestyle. This journey for truth creates in the characters a grotesque nature that …show more content…
He is in a position of authority in the church, yet he is nervous and cannot pass his authority of faith and religion to his audience because of his nervousness. This inadequacy is explained when Anderson writes that he was “by his nature very silent and reticent. To preach, standing in the pulpit before the people, was always a hardship for him and from Wednesday morning until Saturday evening he thought of nothing but the two sermons that must be preached on Sunday” (pg 171). What is grotesque in Hartman is that he is a preacher who uncovers his emotions. Preachers, in assumption, are rolemodel to the audience of each church to strive to be like. Hartman is grotesque because he finds freedom in the viewing of a woman’s bare shoulders. Given his line of work, he is not expected to enjoy the sexual excitement of anyone but his wife. This sexual arousal is what makes Reverend Hartman grotesque. In his search for truth, Reverend Hartman finds that his “truth” is his unfulfilled sexual desires have inspired in him a curious attitude that allows him to escape his normal reality and allows him moments of fantasy when he views the woman nude through the window. His “truth” leads to the grotesque reality of his concealed sexual environment. It is the idea of his grotesque reality that makes him a real character; Reverend Hartman is a legitimate pastor who lives in everyday life in the natural world we
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