Winesburg, Ohio By Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson is the author of Winesburg, Ohio which is a
compilation of short stories. Although there are themes which are common to
most of the stories,. I will focus on isolation, loneliness and unhappiness in order to
examine “Mother” and “Adventure” in detail.
On the one hand, “Mother” is the story of an unhappy elderly woman,
Elizabeth, who owns an old hotel with faded wall paper and ragged carpets
which clearly illustrates an atmosphere of decay like her marriage. She is
frequently ill, drab and worn out. Indeed, she has become a pale and ghostly
figure. This description not only mirrors his physical aspect but also her
feelings regarding life. The silence that surrounds her represents a living death.
Although she is unable to communicate her feelings, the only presence of love
is focused on her son, George.
On the other hand, in “Adventure” is narrated the story of a woman in her
twenties, Alice Hindman, who clerks in a dry good store. She falls in love with a
man, Ned Currie who abandons her to seek work in Cleveland. However, she
spends ten years of loneliness waiting for his return to marry him because she
becomes fixed with the idea of giving her body only to her true love. In spite of
her loneliness, she is lively as well as energetic since she works hard to keep
busy and joins some social and religious organization.
Both characters seem to be isolated and unhappy. Nevertheless, there is
a considerable difference between them connected to age as well as determination. In
the case of Elizabeth, she deeply regrets her past as a passionate
actress who ran about various men. She grieves the lost of her wild youth and
adventurous life. Both things will never return because the time went by,
there is no solution for these regrets. Moreover, she unfairly blames Tom for her
cultural...