Winesburg Ohio By Sherwood Anderson Analysis

Life was not simple for those living in the American Midwest in the late 1800s. The times were changing. Small towns were no longer adequate places for success for the ambitious. Now, the big towns were the place to be. Sherwood Anderson, a well known American writer, was caught in this transition.The situation and place he was born in made his life tough. The difficult and problematic upbringing he had in Ohio allowed him to describe the isolation and lack of opportunities in small Midwestern towns, which he portrayed in his works by using imagery, conflicts within characters, and symbolism. Sherwood Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio on September 13, 1876. He lived there for a short time, and later his family moved to a town called Clyde,
It is a collection of 25 short stories. All of them are about a small town called Winesburg, Ohio. It is a rural town, and can be compared to many Midwestern towns during the late 1800s. It is believed that Clyde, Ohio, the town where Sherwood Anderson was raised, served as an inspiration for Winesburg. The stories are about the residents of Winesburg and some of the issues they faced in their daily lives. One of the stories in this collection is titled "Sophistication." It is about a young man by the name of George Willard and his close friend Helen White. George is going through the troubling time of transition between boyhood and manhood, in which he does not know what to do with himself. He wanders around town looking for some sort of future for his life.While he is walking around, George is angry, confused, and alone. He eventually decides to go to Helen White's house and to talk to her. Helen is going through a tough situation at the same time as George. She is with at the town fair with an instructor from her college in Cleveland, Ohio. At first, she is happy to be with him, as he would impress her old friends, but she later just wants him to go. The man acts as if he is too important and sophisticated to be at the fair, and this annoys Helen. She thinks of George Willard and how she would love to be with him, and she leaves the instructor. Eventually, George and Helen meet up, and they go to an empty
There are 16 short stories in this book. One of them is titled "Death is the Woods," and it is narrated for the third-person point of view. It is about a poor, old woman by the name of Mrs. Grimes and the story of her struggles in life, from childhood to her death. The narrator begins the story by describing her daily routine, and that no one takes special notice of her when she was alive, for there were many women like her in small towns. Then, he tells the audience about Mrs. Grimes's disliked husband and how he meets her. Mrs. Grimes is a bound girl, essentially a slave, at a farm when she is a child and is abused by a farmer. Eventually, Jake Grimes, her future husband, comes and saves her from the terrible place. Mrs. Grimes has two children with Jake, one daughter and one son, but the daughter died at a young age. The narrator makes a note of the fact that Mrs. Grimes always has to feed someone or something during her life. At first, she had to feed the farmer, his wife, and their animals, and now she has to feed her farm animals, husband, and son. It turns out Jake was always getting into trouble, and later his son joins him. The two always get drunk and disappear for weeks at a time, only to come back home and abuse Mrs. Grimes. She was in charge of the household as the two men were rarely home, and they never worked even if they were home. The narrator goes on to describe, in