Religion in "The Book of the Grotesque"

The recent discussion in class about which cahpter in Winseburg, Ohio is the most important made me realize just how important “The Book of the Grotesque” really is.  When I first read it, I thought of the chapter as a somewhat random tale about a man writing a book.  However, after I read the rest of the novel I realized how important it truly is.  This chapter covers many religious allusions that further the idea of the novel being an interpretation of The Bible.  The writer is described as having a “white mustache” (3) multiple times in this chapter.  White is a color that is commonly used to describe a holy or christlike being.  The fact that the writer is the one with the white mustache makes him almost the Jesus to the town and characters of Winesburg; he is the one who knows every “truth” and soon claims people as “grotesques” when they “snatch” away a truth.  To Jesus, these people are known as sinners, but in this novel they are known as grotesques.

In this chapter, the writer has his bed heightened by a carpenter.  Typically in literature, a carpenter is an allusion to Jesus and The Bible.  Due to these two christlike figures taking part in a single chapter, one cannot help but think: why did Sherwood Anderson stress the holiness of both figures?  Anderson seems to emphasize that every character has similarities to biblical characters.  For instance, the dozen truths mentioned on page 6 could relate to the twelve disciples.  These “truths” are introduced with the phrase, “In the beginning when the world was young...” (6), which is a direct reference to Genesis and John from The Bible.However, I cannot seem to place what the young pregnant woman inside The Writer represents.  Since almost everything in the chapter relates back to The Bible, she could possibly be someone like God; but I do not think it is as simple as that.  She could possibly be a reference to anything guiding Jesus.  This could also be God.  Since the source of the writer’s inspiration is this pregnant woman, she could be the reason for his importance and, most importantly, the creation of grotesques.  God was the creation of Jesus and the “grotesques” who reside in Winesburg, Ohio are what make up humanity.  If this is not a direct reference to the bible, then I do not know what is.

The descriptions of the grotesques describe the people of the world.  They are described as “not all horrible.  Some were amusing, some almost beautiful” (5).  The general personalities of the common person would be described the same way as the grotesques.  The purpose of the author to stay general in his descriptions is to maintain a level of abstractness to leave the interpretation of the the chapter and the novel as a whole up to the reader.  My interpretation of Winesburg, Ohio is that everything relates back to The Bible and it all connects as a major biblical reference.

Lit Circles Live Discussion Director Response

As the Discussion Director of my group, I was given the task to think of discussion questions.  This showed me that I have more questions than I originally thought.  The most important question,however, is why did Alice wait so long for a boy she loved when she was younger?  She goes completely insane over this boy throughout her entire life and constantly refers to him as her “lover,”even through the late stages of her life.  Here is my response to my question:

Due to her love for Ned, Alice goes insane; she loses her mind over the boy who once loved her.  At one point, “she arranged a blanket so that in the darkness it looked like a form lying between the sheets and, kneeling beside the bed, she caressed it, whispering words over and over, like a refrain” (110).  The word “caressed” has many sexual connotations to it; it is something someone would do to their lover, not their pillow.  Therefore, Alice is convincing herself that Ned is laying on the bed and she is “caressing” him.  The word “kneeling” in this context gives out a sense of religiousness.  When people pray they typically kneel and the fact that Alice is kneeling next to the pile of pillows that she believes is Ned shows that Alice thinks of him as a religious figure; she worships him even when he has moved on and is not actually there beside her.  The “refrain” mentioned at the end is a powerful finish to the sentence.  A refrain is a song or part of a song sung on repeat.  Not only is Alice singing the refrain to Ned as a way to worship him, she is also symbolizing her time standing still.

She waits for Ned by remaining in Winesburg and working at a dry goods store, where “weeks ran into months and months into years as Alice waited and dreamed of her lover’s return” (107).  Time is still turning, but she remains the same and so does the dry goods store.  This represents the failure of Winesburg to keep up with the times; it is the place where people can live the same way for the rest of their lives since nothing changes except age in the town.

When “fear of age and ineffectuality took possession of her” (108), she learns that time has been passing by while she waisted her life waiting for Ned.  However, she is not angry at herself or Ned for all of this trouble; instead, she is mad at time for ruining her looks and she becomes scared that Ned will not take her back.  However, she does not understand that Ned has already moved on and “forgot Alice in Winesburg” (105).  Ned’s relationship to Alice shows a deep contrast from Alice’s relationship to Ned since Ned thinks of Alice as a girl he once loved when he was younger and Alice thinks of Ned as the perfect man who is destined to be with her and will one day return and swoop her off her feet.  While Ned dates other girls, Alice refuses to so much as walk with other men in fear that she would betray the lover who does not love her back.  This sad irony of this novel proves that Alice is in fact mentally unstable for waiting for--and fantasizing over--Ned for such a long time.

The Insanity of Winesburg, Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio is a novel about a small town and the interesting characters that live in it.  Each character is important because they are all given their own unique personalities, however they are all connected through a few different threads.  The first connection is the most obvious; every character is from the small town of Winesburg, Ohio.  However, perhaps the most interesting fact is a link between all of the personalities.  This link is the mental insanity of every character.  Each person from this novel is to a certain degree of craziness that adds a distinct flavor to the novel.

Reverend Curtis Hartman is a strong example of the mental insanity of the natives of Winesburg.  He started out as a pure man preaching the word of God, but when he was faced with temptation he was led to insanity.  Curtis witnessed Kate Swift as she was laying in bed, but only saw her shoulders and “white” neck.  This white symbolizes the purity that she beholds.  This symbol is actually ironic in the context that it is in since Curtis is experiencing his first taste of temptation and the person who has tempted him is described as “white.”  Through his temptation and lust, he renounces God believing that he has failed the Holy Being for giving in to temptation.  The reason why this proves that Curtis Hartman is, in fact, insane is because of his overreaction and complete obsession with the event that transpired.  After he saw Kate in her bed, he lost his faith and soon not only gave in to temptation, but also fueled it.  He went to the window where he could spy on Kate every night and fantasized about her whenever she was not in his sight.  He was far beyond an obsessive nature and had reached the point of becoming a stalker.

Alice Hindman was driven to insanity through love.  She was smitten with Ned Currie and they had intentions to marry, however, Ned moves out of Winesburg, which leads to Alice’s downfall.  Alice and Ned had made a promise to each other that they would marry when Ned returned from the city.  Alice waited in Winesburg for Ned, but he never returned.  They wrote each other letters for a number of months, but soon dwindled off when Ned’s big-city life got in the way.  He moved on and lusted after other women, but Alice’s life remained the same.  She had been waiting in limbo, with every aspect of her life never changing, except her youth was the only thing to prove to her that time was still turning.  She refers to Ned as her “lover” rather than his actual name after he moves, which shows her insanity.  She still believes that Ned is her lover and will not accept any different; she has created her own reality in her mind to shelter herself from the actual reality.  To her it is better to know that Ned will someday return and they will be married, but in actuality he will never return and he has already forgotten about her.  She holds on to her reality, which strips her mind away from the truth.  She strips her clothes off of her body while running after the old man in the street, which is a metaphor for her mind ridding itself of the truth she has created; her mind is becoming clear.  After her “episode” on the street, she runs inside and cries.  This is to symbolize the reality hitting her after the fake-reality has been stripped away from her mind and now she can clearly see that Ned is no longer a part of her.

Isolation and Independence in "Hairball"

In the short story “Hairball,” the main character Katherine slowly progresses from her true self to a creation of herself; these transitions are represented through her many name changes.  When Katherine is a child, she calls herself by her full name, which symbolizes herself at her most true form: she is not changed by society or altered yet.  However, as she grows up, she starts to change and in turn changes her name to Kathy.  This transition represents herself changing already, even though she is only a young teenager.  She has stopped her mother from dressing her up in frilly clothes and is finally thinking for herself.  This makes Kathy the newly changed Katherine.  Soon enough, she changes her name again to Kath when she moves to University.  Not only is Kath no longer letting her mother boss her around by dressing her up, but she will not let anyone be the boss of her and is now aggressively independent.  She furthered her independence when she changed her name to Kat and moved to England by herself.

This series of name changes could mean a number of things.  She is slowly gaining her independence with each transition and could be representing herself growing up, but it could also symbolize her moral corruption as she grows older.  When she is younger, she is pure and has not had the harshness of the world shown to her yet, therefore she cannot be corrupt.  She is a naïve child who believes in the good of humanity, but when she turns older she realizes that society does not truly have the best intentions, so she shields herself away by trying to prove her independence.  First she pushed her mother away by making her own outfit decisions, then she pushed her friends away by taking “no-bullshit” and finally she pushed the every other person in her life away through her move to England.  Some may call these changes in her life a part of growing up, but it is actually a way to isolate herself from those who love her.

In an effort to feel closer to her love interest, Kat changes Gerald’s name.  This way he can be a creation of Kat, just as she is a creation of herself.  She shortens his name to “Ger” which is three letters long, as her name is.  The reason for the same amount of letters in both of their names is an effort of Kat to have a bond with him that Ger’s wife does not have.  Ger’s wife is described to have all of the qualities that Kat does not have, so having the same amount of letters in Ger’s and Kat’s names is an effort to win Ger over through the similarities that they share--forged or not.  What she soon realizes, though, is that Ger does not actually have true feelings for Kat, so she begins to call him Gerald again out of an act of defiance.  She thinks of “Ger” as one of her creations who she is romantically involved and of “Gerald” as a married man.  The only time Kat says Ger’s full name is when she is demeaning him, since the full name is “a negation of him, an abolishment of him, like ripping a medal off his chest” (3).  Once she changes his name back, he is no longer the man she created.

The Hands of "Fiesta"

"Fiesta, 1980" is a short story about a kid named Yunior growing up in the Bronx with an abusive father.  This short story focusses mainly on the concept of hands.  This motif is used to describe women’s personalities.  Yunior mentions, “one thing about Mami, even when she was nervous, her palms never sweated” (173).  This quote shows Mami’s personality; she is good at hiding her feelings.  A natural reaction to nervousness is sweaty palms, which Mami never seems to have.  She hides her true feelings from Papí in order to stay on his good side.  She acts this way because she knows her children will be beaten if she show anger or fear towards Papí.  However, later on when Yunior is describing the picture of Mami, he realizes how happy she must have been without Papí in her life.  He describes how “you can’t see her hands but I imagined they’re knotting a straw or a bit of thread” (179).  This thought about Mami’s hands prior to meeting Papí symbolizes freedom.  Her hands are able to do whatever they want without the oppressive nature of Papí.  She is able to do something as care-free as knot string and has no one in her way to stop her.  After Mami met Papí, she was never again described as having something of that nature in her hands which means that she is officially ruled by Papí and no longer has her own freedom.  Mami’s “hands adjusted the buckle of her belt over and over again” (171) when she is with Papí, showing more anxiousness in Mami’s nature while she is with her husband.  Repetition of a single action shows nervousness, so the adjusting of the belt leads the reader to believe that she is now an anxious person because of Papí.

Papí is having an affair with the Puerto Rican woman throughout the short story;  Yunior knows about this affair and has met the woman.  He says that she has, “dry papery hands” (176), which show the weakness that she holds.  Paper is a weak object that does not last long amounts of time and there are millions of pieces of paper in the world.  The “papery hands” is a symbol for how replaceable the Puerto Rican woman is.  She will not last long and will soon be replaced by another woman.  She is too weak to have Papí leave Mami for good and too replaceable to even bring up the conversation of it.  If the Puerto Rican woman gets on Papí’s bad side, she know she will be replaced.

**I won the allusion assignment and therefore have to write 400 words**