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Katie Campbell
Interpretive Paper
Brother Jeremy Bailey
July 14, 2014
Setting and the Progress of the Artist in Sherwood Andersons Winesburg, Ohio
Setting in Winesburg
Sherwood Andersons Winesburg, Ohio is the picture of small-town life in a rural
American setting, and while an outsiders description of this setting might be quaint, Anderson
sets out to twist these perceptions of the quaint, simple life of the small town. His focus in
Winesburg is to reveal the inner emotions that his characters cant express for themselves. In this
struggle for expression, the failure of Andersons characters is reflected in the physical properties
of the environment around them. One example comes from the first story in Andersons
collection, Hands. In Hands, the beginning description takes place upon the half-decayed
veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg,
Ohio (Winesburg 9). This image of the half-decayed veranda reflects the state of Wings own
life. Anderson not only uses Wings nervous, excitable hands but also his setting as a twisted,
outward expression of Wings inability to express. Often the description of setting also increases
the sense of isolation the characters feel as well. For example, Wings house being, in addition
to being in disrepair, is on the edge of town, implying an emotional distance.
This example is just one of many in Andersons Winesburg, which raises the question
regarding the function and purpose of setting as it relates to a characters inability, or ability, of
expression. Anderson seems to hint that artists are the ones who are able to express for those who
cannot do it themselves, and these artists seem to have a different reaction with the setting of

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Winesburg. Especially since artists, or those able to express, always seem to be able to leave
Winesburg without permanently coming back; while the grotesques, those who fail to express,
are unable to leave.
The Influence of Expressionism
In order to understand Andersons use of setting it is necessary to examine the influence
of expressionism on his work. Expressionism is the style of artwhether through painting,
music, or writingwhich seeks to express inner emotion using the external world, rather than
conveying impressions of the external world itself. Anderson was greatly influenced by
expressionist principles in his writing of Winesburg. He believed, along with many
expressionists, that the essence of art was to express the inexpressible, to reveal the inward
emotions that are so often hidden. Andersons writing was influenced by many expressionists
such as Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Rosenfeld, Georgia OKeeffe, and Gertrude Stein. His interaction
with their art and company changed the way he thought about his own art, and how it was meant
to accomplish the purpose of revealing humanity.
In focusing his work on his characters inward emotions, Anderson believed that the best
way to convey the sense of hopelessness and failure felt by his characters was to flip the
accepted norms of writing conventions. In A Story Tellers Story, Anderson wrote, What was
wanted I thought was form, not plot, an altogether more elusive and difficult thing to come at
(352). In his focus on form over plot, Anderson achieved an expressionist-like quality to his
writinghis stories became paintings of short outbursts of emotion that revealed the inner pain
felt by his characters. In Vision and Reality: A reconsideration of Sherwood Andersons
Winesburg, Ohio Epifanio San Juan explains that for Anderson, form is essentially an organic
element which follows the contours of an image, of a symbolic cluster of sensory impressions

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aimed toward delivering an objective immediate presentation of a characters inner struggle

(141-2). Andersons focus on form was not the only expressionist principle that translated into
his writing. Anderson also felt that there was a direct correlation between the written expression
and the painted one. He wrote that the words used by the tale-teller were as the colors used by
the painter (A Story Tellers Story, 360). Winesburg, Ohio is the resulting series of paintings
that he produced as a result of expressionisms influence.
Expressionism in Winesburg
Many critics have examined how the ideas of expressionism and art influenced
Andersons writing in Winesburg, Ohio. In his essay Andersons Expressionist Art, David
Stouck shows the connection between Andersons writing and the Expressionist paintings of the
time and highlights how Anderson chose to use many similar techniques as Expressionist
painters in order to give outward expression to the intense private feelings of both the artist and
the characters he created (28). Stouck illustrates the influence that painters like Arthur Dove
and Gertrude Stein had on Anderson through personal contact. These painters taught Anderson
that the external, when warped to reflect the internal, would reveal the truth of internal emotion.
The term expressionism, Stouck says, however loosely applied, indicated the artists
rejection of a surface realism and the attempt instead to make manifest the hidden essence of
things (Andersons Expressionist Art 30).
Stouck shows that the influence of expressionism drastically changed Andersons writing
by juxtaposing a passage from Andersons work Windy McPhersons Son (published in 1916)
and Winesburg, Ohio (published in 1919), both introducing a character, to show the shift in
Andersons writing. His resulting examination of the two passages shows a shift in Andersons
writing from long, complex sentences focused on the physical details to short, simple sentences

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which only provide description of one outstanding characteristic. This shift in writing style
clearly shows how Andersons writing of Winesburg, Ohio was influenced by the ideas of
expressionism that a work should be simple and use the external to express the internal, in this
case, with a bizarre physical trait. Stouck analyzes how expressionism helped to form
Andersons focus on human feeling rather than plot, and how this influenced the experimentation
that made Anderson so influential on modern writers.
In Winesburg, Ohio and the Failure of Art, Stouck continues to examine art in
Winesburg, but this time argues that Andersons work is an examination of the failure of
expressionist art. He claims that if the artist is the only one able to fully express himself, then
ultimately his art would fail because only he would be fully aware of it (Failure of Art 146).
Stouck argues that the question of Winesburg, Ohio is to what degree can art fulfill those human
needs left unsatisfied by life? (Failure of Art 147). He looks especially into the collections
first sketch, The Book of the Grotesque, to identify how the narrator deals with isolation and
expression, concluding that because of the nature of isolation it is impossible to really know and
understand another person. The relativity of truth makes it impossible for art to express anything
fully to anyone but the artist. This reading defeats what seems to be the whole purpose of the
collection. Stouck here argues that Winesburg only affirms that there is no true expression
between individuals, for a person can only truly understand what they themselves see and
express. This does not mean that Winesburg is a failure, Stouck explains, but shows that it is an
examination of the failure of art.
In Art and Isolation, Edwin Fussell also examines the theme of expression and isolation
in Winesburg, Ohio, but shows how Georges awareness of isolation is what allows him to relate
to the grotesques around him. Fussell looks at the mixed feelings of Anderson concerning

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isolation and artistic expression and how this ambivalence influences Andersons exploration
between the differences of the artist and the grotesque in Winesburg, Ohio. Fussell claims that
one of the things that makes Winesburg so intriguing is the seeming harmony between artist and
society shown by the grotesques of Winesburg like Doctor Parcival, Wash Williams, Joe
Welling, and Kate Swift in their readiness to give George advice (109). But these characters also
wish to gain some form of expression in return, and Georges potential for expression makes
them so eager in their attempts to share their stories with him. Ultimately, it is Georges growth
that makes him different from the society around him. Fussell writes, The view of the artist
presented in Winesburg is that of a man who joins sympathy and understanding to detachment
and imperturbability (111). In other words, the artist is the one who recognizes that all human
beings are isolated, but they can still in some way express themselves to each other. Fussell uses
examples from An Awakening, Sophistication, and Departure to show this difference in
George as he grows up, and claims in the end that it is the realization of this opposition between
sympathy and detachment that makes George an artist.
Another exploration of art in Winesburg, Ohio is found in Jon S. Lawrys The Arts of
Winesburg and Bidwell, Ohio. Lawry points out that as a young man, a budding artist,
Anderson returned to his boyhood home in Ohio to find it the essential constituents of his adult
imagination and that Winesburg is unusual in literature because the opposition in his story is
neither about trying to leave or trying to return home, but about the interaction of leaving and
returning (54). Lawry examines this particular complexity in Andersons works in the three
stages of stories in Andersons collection, the village, the town, and the city. If the stages are
viewed as progressively representing the value of the past and present worlds, the perspective of
George Willard shows that the past is valuable, but the world is moving on with the knowledge

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gained from the past. Lawry argues that the truest art is found in the small towns that represent
the past, and that his eagerness to move on implies the Georges art will have less value than the
full art of the Winesburg stories (57). Lawry further claims that Anderson balances this with
the view of the old man in The Book of the Grotesque who provides a stationary background
for the artfully rich stories of Winesburg. Lawry also examines the art of the city in Andersons
Poor White, to show that there is value in both the old and the new arts demonstrated by the
stories of the town and the city, both demonstrating isolation in different ways. Ultimately,
Andersons works are to be seen as referential to a large American dilemma of progress and
value (Lawry 65). In Winesburg, Anderson shows that the stories of the grotesque have great
value in terms of art, but it was also necessary for George to leave in order to balance the
experiences of his childhood with the art of his manhood.
Andersons Expressionist Setting
This examination of Expressionism, isolation, and the artist in Andersons work can also
be enhanced by an exploration of the setting as an expressionist principle in Winesburg, Ohio. In
Winesburg, Sherwood Anderson uses the setting of Winesburg to reflect the characters degraded
and isolated states. By using setting to show the characters emotions, and specifically by
highlighting the changes in George Willards reaction to setting in his short stories An
Awakening and Sophistication, Anderson shows the difference between the grotesque and the
artist which allows the artist to express where the grotesque cannot.
Setting and the Progress of the Artist
In exploring the difference between the artist and the grotesque, it is helpful to look at
how Anderson uses the setting to express the despair of his characters. Anderson highlights the
experiences of multiple grotesques in Winesburg, and in many of the stories, the Anderson paints

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a setting that reflects the grotesque state of his characters. In Expressionist Contours in
Sherwood Andersons Fiction Fred Madden writes, Concentration on the problems of selfexpression does not, in itself, make Andersons work Expressionist. But the close relationship
between these expressional problems and the twisted or grotesque emotional states of his
characters do give his work some definable Expressionist contours (370). So the struggle of
Andersons characters alone do not make Winesburg expressionist in nature, it is the way that
Anderson reveals those struggles. Anderson does this mainly through physical deformities, and
like the physical manifestations of the grotesque, Anderson uses the setting as an Expressionist
principle to paint the emotions of his characters. Already mentioned was the decayed veranda in
Hands. In Paper Pills, the doctors musty office above the dry goods store shows the
doctors grotesqueness just as his knuckles like twisted little apples (Winesburg 14). In
Mother the state of the hotel is clearly connected to the state of Elizabeth Willard. Anderson
describes the hotel as disorderly with faded wallpaper and ragged carpets (Winesburg 16).
In a similarly eerie fashion, Elizabeth herself is described as a tall, ghostly figure, moving
slowly through the halls (Winesburg 16). The connection between the two emphasizes the
grotesqueness of Elizabeth. In Adventure, Alice Hindman waits for years for her sweetheart
Ned Currie to return to Winesburg to marry her. As her hope that he will return slowly dwindles,
she becomes more attached to her surroundings. Her loneliness causes her to return home after
she works and to stay there. She became attached to inanimate objects, and because it was her
own, could not bear to have anyone touch the furniture of her room (Winesburg 61). As Alices
dreams dwindle, her setting becomes everything to her. Stouck explains that part of the reason
the setting reflects these characters degraded states comes from what Anderson learned from
expressionist painters that representational accuracy conveyed only lifes surfaces, that an artist,

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painter or writer, had to alter the perception of surface reality so that the hidden inner truth of
the subject would emerge (Andersons Expressionist Art 29). This function of setting as
altering perception is helpful in understanding the plight of the grotesques in Winesburg, and
especially helpful in understanding the metaphor of the grotesques in the story Death, which is
one of the final episodes in Andersons collection.
In Death, perhaps more than any other story, the setting of the budding affair between
Elizabeth and Dr. Reefy is particularly bleak. Anderson begins the story with a description of the
hall leading to Dr. Reefys office. The stairway leading to it is but dimly lighted only by a
small, rusty old lamp (Winesburg 122). The steps are incredibly worn by the feet of many who
had gone before (Winesburg 122). The dimly lighted worn setting of the stairway sets of the
main imagery of the setting outside of Dr. Reefys office.
At the top of the stairway a turn to the right brought you to the doctors door. To the
left was a dark hallway filled with rubbish. Old chairs, carpenters horses, step
ladders and empty boxes lay in the darkness waiting for shins to be barked. The pile
of rubbish belonged to Paris Dry Goods Co. When a counter or a row of shelves in
the store became useless, clerks carried it up the stairway and threw it on the pile.
(Winesburg 123)
Anderson interestingly parallels the many feet that have gone up the stairs with the many pieces
of trash that end up outside of the doctors office. These people, probably grotesques like the
other residents of Winesburg, needed more than just the physical aid of a doctor, but some
internal, emotional aid, like Elizabeth who comes to the doctor and finds herself more alive as
she tells him about the dreams of her youth. These others sought for some understanding and
connection to combat their isolation. Anderson seems to suggest that the expression that the lost

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souls of Winesburg seek for can be found in the aid from an artist just as physical ailments are
improved with the aid of the doctor.
Andersons interest in the desire for expression is central to the development of George
Willard, especially concerning Georges writinghis art. But before George becomes a
successful artist, Anderson shows what could happen if he cannot achieve full expression in
Loneliness, which highlights the failure of Enoch Robinson. In Loneliness, Anderson
provides the opposite pattern of George Willards progress as an artist. Enoch, a budding artist,
leaves Winesburg to pursue his art. He could draw well enough and he had many odd delicate
thoughts hidden away in his brain that might have expressed themselves through the brush of a
painter, but he was always a child and that was a handicap to his worldly development
(Winesburg 92). Anderson shows that Enoch has potential, but he left Winesburg too soon for
his art to really express. His lack of maturity made it difficult for him to express his emotions in
a fulfilling way.
Anderson shows this inability in an examination of one of Enochs paintings. In this
particular painting, many of Enochs critics talk about the composition of his work, but
according to Enoch they seem to be missing the point. There is a clump of elders in the
background where an injured woman, thrown from her horse, is hidden from view. When Enoch
wants to explain this to his friends it is revealed why the woman is hidden. He thinks to himself,
I didnt try to paint the woman, of course. She is too beautiful to be painted (Winesburg 93). In
this passage, Enoch seems to be on the verge of greatness. He understands the beauty of
suffering and the purpose of art in expressing that beauty, but he cannot do it himself. And
because he cannot express it, that beauty is concealed in the setting, the background, simply as
the dark spot by the road that you might not notice at all (Winesburg 93). Eventually, like the

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others who fail to express, Enoch returns to Winesburg because of his fear of expression. His
inability to grow up, his child-like innocence, in the end causes him to conceal his expression in
the background.
Anderson also provides a pattern showing what happens in successful artists in order to
provide a path for George to follow. Others, potential artists, also leave Winesburg in search of
expression, and those who seem to have the ability to express never return to Winesburg. These
artist go before George in a pattern to follow if he is successful in his artistic expression. In
Godliness, David is born into a setting that he finds oppression, and eventually finds beauty at
his grandfathers farm. When he is forced to flee, however, we see his true escape. Davids
ability to see the beauty of the world implies that he is successful when he leaves Winesburg,
because unlike all those who fail to express, he never returns. This escape of the artist is also
seen in The Thinker as Seth Richmond leaves Winesburg and never returns. Seth is mature in a
way that Enoch was not and that George is not yet. This maturity allows him to leave Winesburg,
and not return, implying that he succeeded in expressing himself.
The maturation of George Willard is the progress of the artist in Winesburg, Ohio. One of
Georges first encounters with the frustration of expression is found in An Awakening. The
function of setting in this particular story reveals the beginning of Georges journey as an artist,
as well as his first failure. As George walks down Main Street at night Anderson describes the
setting from Georges point of view. It is unusually lovely, and in his solitary walk, George
begins to dream (Winesburg 101). He pretends to be a soldier and after acting out a scene he
stops in wonder at his own thoughts. Thrilled with his imagination, George finds himself in a
dimly lit area of town in a little dark alleyway behind the sheds in which lived the cows and
pigs (Winesburg 102). While the scene would normally be repulsive, George stays for a half

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hour. In fact, the very rankness of the smell of manure in the clear sweet air awoke something
heady in his brain (Winesburg 102). In this case, Anderson reverses the normal pattern of
setting. Instead of being described as the dirty, old alley that it is, the scene is wonderful,
reflecting Georges artistic sense and excitement. After his experience in the alleyway, George
feels unutterably big and remade and begins to whisper words into the night air because they
were brave words, full of meaning (Winesburg 102). Though the scene is actually disgusting, it
increases the inspiration of Georges imagination until he feels that he must somehow express it.
In this sudden urge to express himself to another human being, George seeks out Belle
Carpenter; however, when he fails to truly express what he is feeling and is utterly humiliated by
Ed Handby, all inspiration is lost. On his way home he once again stops by that crowded
alleyway but finds that he [cannot] bear the sight and finds it utterly squalid and
commonplace (Winesburg 105). The setting once again reverts to its pattern and reflects
Georges humiliation, and he is no longer able to express the dreams that were so inspired just
moments earlier. Using the setting to reflect Georges shifting emotions, Anderson shows the
potential he has for artistic expression, but also shows that George has not yet reached the point
where he is able to communicate his emotions with other human beings. This scene is very
similar to what Anderson himself felt about words. In A Story Tellers Story he writes, I wanted
to spend my life walking about and looking at things, listening to words, to the sound of winds
blowing though trees, smelling life sweet and alive, not put away somewhere in a dark illsmelling place (154). While there is no direct correlation between Andersons own sentiments
and the experience of George, the parallels highlight the importance of expression, through art,
for Anderson. It is obvious, however, that George is not yet able to express.

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In An Awakening part of this inability to express comes from Georges lack of

maturity. Fussell writes that Anderson is clear in his collection of stories that the artists
essential quality must be defined as a capacity for growth which he refuses to attribute to any of
the grotesques (110). Like Enoch, when in a state of immaturity, George was unable to express
himself, but in Sophistication Anderson gives the reader a sense that this has changed.
Through Georges reaction to the setting in Sophistication, Anderson shows that George has
changed, that there is something that makes him different from the grotesques. Anderson
describes a bustling Winesburg preparing for the county fair, but all that day, amid the jam of
people at the Fair, [George] had gone about feeling lonely (Winesburg 130). It is not simply
loneliness that sets George apart from the grotesques of Winesburg, for many of the grotesques
are lonely. But it is the nature of his loneliness that sets him apart. Fussell explains that the
artist, in order to express the common passion, must remain free from entanglements with it,
while those who actually live the common passion are by the very fact of their involvement
prevented from coming to the threshold of complete self-realization and are thereby deprived of
the release inherent in expression (111). This moment in which he feels alone is the moment
when the sense of Georges maturity arrives. Anderson writes, There is a time in the life of
every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment
when he crosses the line into manhood (Winesburg 130). This moment of looking back is filled
with ambitions and regrets, ghosts of old things, concerns about the limitations of life; it is
the moment, for the first time, when George goes from being sure of his future to not at all
sure (Winesburg 131). George realizes how small he is in the world, and how short life is.
This moment of maturity is what Anderson calls the sadness of sophistication
(Winesburg 131). And just as George sought for Belle Carpenter at his first artistic sense, when

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the moment of sophistication came to George Willard his mind turned to Helen White, a young
woman who also had come to a period of change (131). This moment of maturity marks for
Anderson the shift into the ability for expression. The important part of this turning point is
Georges feeling of isolation though he is surrounded by people. He understands why he cannot
express. His setting has revealed to him that though there are so many other people in the world,
he is alone. Therefore, George views the setting with sadness, but this sadness actually holds the
potential for fulfilling expression.
Like the scenes highlighting the struggles of the grotesques, the scene between George
and Helen takes place in a degraded setting. At the upper end of the fair ground, in Winesburg,
there is a half decayed old grand-stand. It has never been painted and the boards are all warped
out of shape (Winesburg 134). Once again, the setting reflects something in Helen and George
that remains unfulfilled. This lack of fulfillment comes from the feeling of isolation that both
have gained from reaching sophistication. The feeling of loneliness and isolation that had come
to the young man in the crowded streets of his town was both broken and intensified by the
presence of Helen. What he felt was reflected in her (Winesburg 134). For George and Helen,
like the other grotesques, the hardest part of being unable to express is the loneliness that
accompanies failure.
But in the half decayed grand stand, Helen and George realize something that sets them
apart from the grotesques, that everyone will always be alone. In that high place in the darkness
the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was
the same thought. I have come to this lonely place and her is this other, was the substance of
the thing felt (Winesburg 135). With this thought, George and Helen break away from the
decaying grand stand and in a childishness that can only be had in maturity they somehow find a

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moment of fulfillment. This fulfillment comes because of their realization that no matter where
they go, they will always be alone in some sense, but this doesnt mean that they cant be alone
together, just as Anderson sets up all his lonely characters in the same lonely town. Fussell also
claimed that the grotesques anxiety to escape their isolation is in itself excessive and truly
symptomatic of their grostquerie. It is of the utmost importance that their counterweight, George
Willard, is almost alone among the inhabitants of Winesburg in being able to accept the fact of
human isolation and to live with it (110-1). The fact that George accepts this shows not only his
maturity but his ability for artistic sense. There will always be some gap in understanding
between human beings, but those who understand this come closer to understanding the little
truths that bustle around them in the course of their daily livesthose who understand are the
artists. And so, though the setting is still old and decayed, Anderson shows that George and
Helen are able to break away from it in a moment of pure, successful communication with each
other.
It is this sophistication, this understanding of isolation, with which artists, and George,
leave Winesburg. In Departure, George readies himself to leave Winesburg, and as he waits
for the train to depart Anderson reveals the connection between setting and expression. As
Winesburg disappears from Georges view the reader understands that George will achieve
artistic expressionthat he will not return to Winesburg, for his life there had become but a
background on which to pain the dreams of his manhood (Winesburg 138). Winesburg was the
necessary setting for Georges growth and is now the necessary structure on which he will form
his expressions.
The ending sentence is strikingly similar to one written by Anderson in A Story Tellers
Story. The books like life itself are only useful to me in as much as they feed my own dreams or

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give me a background upon which I can construct new dreams (A Story Tellers Story 155-6).
The background then, for an artist, serves as the foundation of expression. Though attaching and
even concealing the beauty of suffering in Winesburg causes other characters even greater pain
and loss for expression, Georges use of Winesburg, as a necessary background on which to
display clearly those unexpressed inward emotions, displays his ability of artistic expression. But
just as Lawry suggests, we feel that George will someday return to Winesburg, not permanently
for he knows the connection between isolation and expression, but he will return at least for the
stories of the grotesques with which he grew up. As Ralph Ciancio says in The Sweetness of
the Twisted Apple: Unity of Vision in Winesburg, Ohio, The irony serves to remind us that
Georges destiny is contingent upon the lives of the grotesques, whose suffering will become the
substance of his art, and whose fulfillment is contingent upon the dreams they have inspired in
him (1006). Andersons dual use of Winesburg, as the setting in which his characters cannot
find true expression, and as the twisted setting in which the artist can reveal those unexpressed
emotions, shows that the grotesque is indeed beautiful, and the artist is the one who can use the
background as the structure to express it.

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Works Cited
Anderson, Sherwood. A Storytellers Story. 1924. Mattituck, New York: American Reprint
Company. Print.
---. Winesburg, Ohio. 1919. New York: Norton, 1996. Print.
Ciancio, Ralph. "The Sweetness of the Twisted Apples: Unity of Vision in Winesburg,
Ohio." PMLA 87.5 (1972): 994-1006. Print.
Fussell, Edwin. "Winesburg, Ohio: Art and Isolation." Modern Fiction Studies 6.2 (1960): 106114. Print.
Lawry, Jon S. "The Arts of Winesburg and Bidwell, Ohio." Twentieth Century Literature 23.1
(1977): 53. Print.
Madden, Fred. "Expressionist Contours in Sherwood Anderson's Fiction." The Midwest
Quarterly 38.4 (1997): 363-71. Print.
San Juan, Epifanio, Jr. "Vision and Reality: A Reconsideration of Sherwood Anderson's
Winesburg, Ohio." American Literature 35.2 (1963): 137. Print.
Stouck, David. Andersons Expressionist Art. New Essays on Winesburg, Ohio. Ed. John
W. Crowley. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 27-51. Print.
---. "Winesburg, Ohio and the Failure of Art." Twentieth Century Literature 15.3 (1969): 14551. Print.