The Nature of Humanity in the Work of Sherwood Anderson Essay -- Human

The Nature of Humanity in the Work of Sherwood AndersonA common staple of horror storiesin film and on the scalawagis the scene of the frightened and indignant villagers chasing the monster who has been terrorizing the townsfolk. In Sherwood Andersons Hands, the protagonist, Adolph Myers (Wing Biddlebaum) is a well-intentioned individual whose actions the people around him contort so that he becomes more(prenominal) fiend than friend. In Wing Biddlebaum, the very aspects of his character that make him human are those that society distorts to make him into a maladapted monster first, the mystery that surrounds him causes the townspeople to misconstrue him second, because of the accusations of his pedophilic homosexuality stemming from this misunderstanding, they demonized him into a pariah and, third, the guilt that the mob forces him to feel ultimately confines him to his own prison of anguish. Approaching the story from this perspective demonstrates that Wings destiny is al cl osely beyond his control, a destiny significantly manufactured by his societys judgments. Wing is an extremely intricate person however, most of the people among whom he lived in Pennsylvania before his current residence in Ohio failed to recognize this, as do his fellow citizens in the town of Winesburg. Anderson describes him as one of those rare, little-understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as a lovable weakness (13). Just as his preceding(prenominal) neighbors were unable to understand Wing fully, so are those among whom he currently lives the depth and complexity of his suffering baffles them (Elledge 11). The very profundity of Wings military post explains why he for twenty years had been the town mystery, although osten... ...While he is obviously no monster, ironically, his weakness and frailty as a limited mortal hold out his fall from grace, making a rise from such a fall seem insurmountable, tragically preserving the inaccurate image of his soul as that of a specified depraved, malevolent, and corrupting offense to human decency.Works CitedAnderson, Sherwood. Hands. Winesburg, Ohio. New York Bantam, 1995. 8-15.Brown, Lynda. Andersons Wing Biddlebaum and Freemans Louisa Ellis. Studies inShort Fiction 27.3 (1990) 413-414.Elledge, Jim. Dantes Lovers in Sherwood Andersons Hands. Studies in ShortFiction 21.1 (1984) 11-15.Morgan, Gwendolyn. Andersons Hands. The Explicator 48.1 (1989) 46-47.Updike, John. Twisted Apples On Winesburg, Ohio. The American Short Story andIts Writer. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston Bedford, 2000. 1464-1468.