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.