The Lives of Anderson's Characters

Steinbeck is looking for process, however, and he is nigh interested in the ability of the benignant race to make up leaders who can commit themselves to altruistic behavior when part force it on them. His narrative rolls forward along the American highways after the fashion of most epic journeys, while approximately no genius budges from Winesburg. The marked contrast between the future-orientation of Steinbeck's process and the backward-looking residents of Winesburg has the effect of making the former a work that contemplates a landscape of hopelessness, while the latter looks on a furthermost bleaker landscape and sees it as filled with potential.

The events that helped shape the lives of Anderson's characters have approximately always taken place in the past. The relationship of the psyche to that past is often the substance of the character's life. Alice Hind world, for example, has her confusion and disappointment in never being sent for by her lover and extension service Biddlebaum is still bewildered by the events that redirected his life. Yet none of these large number, in the loneliness and isolation that ensues, finds any resources of comfort or human confederacy among the "hundreds and hundreds" of similarly situated grotesques. This can be contrasted with Steinbeck's approximately sentimental version of the basic unity of the people. In the camps, interview of a child who died of malnutrition, a group of anonymous migrants learns that the family canno

t afford to bury the boy. " hand went into pockets and picayune coins came out. In front of the tent a little heap of silver grew . . . . Our people are good people; our people are kind people" (307-8). Though the lesson is heavy-handed, the inclination of the interconnectedness of all humanity comes through clearly. The contrast with the isolation observed by Anderson is striking.

But resistance is a extra act. Steinbeck has been charged with creating will-less characters who are merely shuffled about like animals, altogether at the command of forces they barely understand.

But to say that the super C fate of the majority of people is to have their lives directed and controlled by forces beyond their control is not to say that they are animals. The composure of Anderson's people who allow their circumstances to overwhelm them is not judged to be an animal-like response. In fact their resignation is often their most vibrant quality. Dr. Parcival's conviction that he will be crucified frightens him but he accepts it. Curtis Hartman is strangely convinced that he has conquered his own weakness when he masochistically smashes the window. Neither of these men can make the connection that could change their situations but their choices for dealing with the lack of connection--basically a replenishment of religious involvements--is all that they have in the end. Dr. Parcival, for example, never sees the man he is talking to--he could be talking to any one and the fact that it is George is largely irrelevant. If he could stop and see the expressive style in which his confidences are truly being received he would be forced to look back at himself.

Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. 1919. rude(a) York: Penguin, 1976.

Anderson wrote out of his own se
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