Sherwood Anderson

Throughout Winesburg, Ohio women are a reoccurring theme. Nearly every woman mentioned in the story is unsatisfied or miserable in some way. It is interesting to me that biblically, women are the cause of man’s downfall and this seems to be apparent in Winesburg as well. In “Respectability”, we see a woman destroy Wash Williams. During Wash’s marriage, he is handsome and well kept and a pleasant man. He has good morals and is devoted and enamored by his wife. On the contrary, his wife is dishonest and disloyal to Wash. Interestingly, Wash did not hate his wife when he found out she cheated on him; he was not pleased but he let it go and moved on because he loved her so much. It was not until his wife’s mom tried to basically whore her daughter off to him that he lost all respect for women. Not only was his wife disloyal but she was also presenting herself as a sex object. Wash wants women to be actual people with feelings and thoughts; the realization that the woman he loved is in fact artificial made him lose faith in humanity- women especially.  His wife is on several occasions described in an angelic way yet she is ironically nothing like an angel. Her dishonesty turns Wash into a hateful, disgusting, and ugly man. So, alluding to Adam and Eve, the woman has led to the man’s downfall. Additionally, none of the women in the book are particularly admirable; everybody just seems whiny. They all have some sort of love issue because they have not allowed self independence. Women are seemed as weak yet semi influential in this book. Perhaps Anderson has had a difficult time with women in his past because it certainly does not seem like he is very fond of them. Anderson’s personal life was severely dysfunctional. He was married three times and had a mental breakdown and left his wife and three children. This episode is probably reflected in his writing because all of the characters have odd marriages and families. I guess Anderson never really “grew up” in some ways; his inability to have a normal life reflects that. Perhaps this is because in some ways he had to grow up so fast. He had several jobs as a young teenager and made a life of his own at a young age. Maybe his book is his way of warning people from missing out on childhood and becoming him. It is not even all about experiencing childhood, but more about truly finding oneself. This is because nobody is really capable of being independent and confident if she or he doesn’t experience self stability. I think that Anderson lacked this step in life and he suffered his entire life from never growing up properly. His mental breakdown was this realization and he wrote Winesburg to warn others and express reason for his failures. Winesburg shows that maturity will come when it is ready to come and nobody should rush this.