Winesburg, Ohio
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Winesburg, Ohio is a 1919 short story cycle by the American author Sherwood Anderson.
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Plot introduction
A critically acclaimed work of fiction by the American author Sherwood Anderson, the book, published in 1919, is a collection of related short stories, which could be loosely defined as a novel. The stories are centered on the protagonist George Willard and the fictional inhabitants of the town of Winesburg, Ohio (not the actual unincorporated town of Winesburg in Holmes County).
Plot summary
The work explores the theme of loneliness and frustration in small-town America. Anderson's writing often seems disjointed and tentative, a style that lends itself to the half-conscious thoughts and raw emotions of Winesburg's residents and their inability to express their deepest hopes and fears. The townspeople are grotesques, stunted morally, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, and they are inarticulate. They seem to gravitate toward George, telling him their strange, often sad, stories in the hope that, in writing the stories of their lives, he will be able to impart dignity and meaning to their personal struggles and experiences. The chapter "Paper Pills" recounts how the misshapen apples - the grotesques of the orchard - are ignored, left on the tree, where they slowly ripen until they fall. Those that bother to taste these discarded grotesques discover they are the sweetest of apples.
Literary significance & criticism
The critical reception to Winesburg, Ohio upon its publication was positive, but it did not receive a wide readership. Among the literati, it was very highly regarded, but its sales were modest. It is now regarded as one of the finest American novels of the 20th century.
Allusions/references from other works
The characterization foreshadowed the outlook of Sinclair Lewis toward American Midwest in his novel Main Street, published the following year, although it seems as though it is a parody of the citizens of Winesburg. In both works, the townspeople are presented as being simple-minded, but are miserable in Anderson's work while they are obliviously happy in all their narrow mindedness with the heroine, struggling to reform their mindset as the only miserable one in Main Street.
Ray Bradbury has credited Winesburg, Ohio as an inspiration for his book The Martian Chronicles.<ref>"Run Fast, Stand Still, or, The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds," How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by J.A. Williamson, Writers Digest Books, 1986; collected in Zen in the Art of Writing.</ref> H. P. Lovecraft said that he wrote the short story "Arthur Jermyn" after he "had nearly fallen asleep over the tame backstairs gossip of Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio."<ref>H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Edwin Baird, c. October 1923; cited in S. T. Joshi and David Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 90.</ref>
Israeli writer Amos Oz writes in his biography "A tale of love and darkness" that "Winesburg, Ohio" had an extremely big influence on his writing, showing him that literature must not necessarily always be about heroes. Actually, only after reading Anderson he found the courage to start writing.
It is rumoured that screenwriter Daniel Waters, in his screenplay for the black comedy Heathers, created the name of the fictional town of Sherwood, Ohio from Sherwood Anderson's name as a form of tribute.
Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science
Anderson grew up in Clyde, Ohio, and this town served as the model for his fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. (There is some confusion on which town served as the model for this fictional work, because there is a real town with the name Winesburg, Ohio. He reportedly created his fictional characters by combining the qualities of many real life people from notable families in the area, such as the Dumingers, Farrars, Belchers, Skeelses, Crockets and Wises.
TV and Theatrical production
A TV version was made in 1973 starring Joseph and Timothy Bottoms as George Willard, Jean Peters as Elizabeth Willard, Curt Conway as Will Henderson, Norman Foster as Old Pete, Dabbs Greer as Parcival, Albert Salmi as Tom Willard, Laurette Spang as Helen White, and William Windom as Dr. Reefy. A musical of the same name won the Barrymore Award for "Outstanding musical" in 2006. [http://www.theatrealliance
