In his introduction to “The Portalable Sherwood Anderson” Horace Gregory had this to say about Winesburg, Ohio: “What is felt in Winesburg, Ohio, felt rather than read, overheard rather than stressed, is a memory of youth, of early ‘joys and sorrows,’ and this is conveyed with the simplicity of a folk tale, a style known in all languages.”
Any thoughtful reader who has come across these rousing tales would agree that Sherwood Anderson has written a masterpiece in Winesburg, Ohio. It is as Gregory suggested: one feels these stories and sympathizes with its characters. The concerns of the people in Winesburg, Ohio are the concerns of men and women around the world: longing, understanding, love. Concerns of vital importance, seemingly more so than ever today.
Fiction of any consequence includes characters whose lives are comparable to our own, mainly in their struggles, their speech and their actions. In a quiet, desperate determination, Kate Swift, Doctor Reefy, Seth Richmond, George Williard, and the rest of the inhabitants of Winesburg are struggling for what is universally good and true in human nature. Though they don’t always succeed. Often times they fail and fail miserably. They say the wrong thing at the wrong time or else commit puzzling deeds which are more often than not a detriment to their well-being. But haven’t we all done this? Haven’t we all, with full intentions of goodwill, hurt ourselves and others in the process? What is more lifelike than that? What I am getting at is this: these characters are at once identifiable and deserving of our understanding, just as their real-life counterparts are. The grotesques. Don’t we love them, either secretly or outwardly?
I cannot lie though and say that these stories aren’t gloomy. They are. They are bleak. There is a profound sadness in the story of Elizabeth Williard whose innocent womanhood, as with most women in these tales, is abused and distorted by the men who think it their birthright. And the men, like Reverend Harmond and his ambivalence towards Kate Swift, misunderstand their emotions and go through great inner turmoil (nearly costing Harmond’s relationship to God) trying to understand themselves. One gets the feeling that the sun has not shone for a very long time in Winesburg. A thick blanket of gray clouds covers the sky there. And miscommunication is rife in the land. Though that’s not at all to say it is hopeless. Singularly, that is all the townsfolk of Winesburg have, is hope. Hope that love and decency will succeed and triumph. Hope of being understood. Hope that sunny days are ahead, despite the weatherman’s forecast. It is in them as all people that that little flame of hope is inextinguishable.
What else can be said about these tales that hasn’t been said before? They are at once concerned with men and women in despair. They want to understand one another. Who cannot identify with that? Though repeatedly ineffectual, their attempts are admirable and correct. Anyone who comes across these tales in Winesburg, Ohio will be shocked at their relevancy, for there is a bit of 19th century Winesburg in San Fransico, Miami, New York, Krako, and Osaka in this 21st century.
Alan R Massey 