Thursday, October 29, 2015
Sherwood vs George
Who names their kid Sherwood? If you are reading this and your name is Sherwood then I am sorry. I meant know offence. Anyway most people believe that George Willard acts as a sort of avatar of the author within Sherwood Anderson's story, Winesburg Ohio. I was interested in this so I did some research to find similarities between the two. One big similarity that I noticed was that throughout the story George becomes infatuated (at least to an extent) with four women: Louise Trunnion, Kate Swift, Belle Carpenter, and Hellen White. Sherwood Anderson himself was married to four different women in his lifetime. Three of these women he married after the publication of Winesburg Ohio, but I personally thought it was an interesting coincidence. In terms of childhood, Anderson doesn't have much in common with George, Anderson's hometown of Clyde, Ohio bears much resemblance to Winesburg, but other than that and fathers who were frequently in debt the two have little in common in terms of home life. Anderson's father and mother worked low end jobs to make ends meet, and Anderson himself was renowned for working to the bone as a child. I personally feel that George doesn't represent the pre-writing Anderson; not from the outside anyway. Rather I feel like Anderson felt that an expressive, creative, and artistic being was trapped inside him by the financial realities of his life. And just as George left Winesburg to become the man he always wanted to be, Anderson left his wife and kids (in a far less romanticized and admirable fashion) to go pursue his artistic dream.
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There are a large number of parallels between Anderson's life and George Willard. I definitely agree that George represents him. It makes me wonder whether any of these stories are based off of experiences from Anderson's life.
ReplyDeleteI am slightly offended by your opening comment. I was once asked if I would name my son Sherwood, and my response was, "Sherwood." Anyway, I do believe that Sherwood put a lot of himself into George Willard. I remember someone (I think Ms. Baskin) bringing up something along the lines that George is a representation of Anderson, but he did it subconsciously or as a defense mechanism. Since their aren't as many parallels between Anderson and Willard as with other portrayals of Authors as characters in their stories, its a theory that I would believe. Great topic.
ReplyDeleteI didnt realize that both Anderson and George had 4 love lifes, its even wierder that Anderson only had one when he published Winesburg, but still ended up having the same number that George did in the story. I really like your idea that you presented in the end of your post. The characters paralleled each other in the sense that they both felt trapped and confined in their current situations, and therefore both needed a stark change.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your analysis James. I never actually thought to look deeply at how the personalities and early lives of Anderson and George compared. I really like the idea that you were alluding to that the story of Winesburg in some way's represents Anderson's creative journey in life to find his passion for writing, just like how George searches for the qualities that he thinks he must adopt to become a man. Overall a really cool analysis of the story as a whole.
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