There's No Escaping Winesburg

                 The final story is a fitting end to the story of Winesburg, Ohio. It is appropriately named Departure because George Willard has decided to leave Winesburg. His departure takes place in the month of April. This of course is not a coincidence because the month of April is generally thought of as  the month of spring and rebirth. By leaving Winesburg, George himself is going to be reborn and go off into the rest of the world for the first time. Another interesting thing that happens in this story is that all of the towns people come by George to wish him farewell.  This is very similar to the very beginning of the story in The Book of the Grotesque, where the old author, who we know is George Willard himself, sees these images of people passing in front of his person. This idea that the beginning is similar to the end of the story, does a nice job of tying the book together and giving it a completed sense.

                One small detail that I overlooked while first reading Departure was the quote about George and his father. It said "The son had become taller than the father"(Anderson 245). At first, I only thought of this detail in the physical sense; George had simply grown taller than his father, that often happens. But what’s more important here is the deeper meaning of this quote. George may be physically taller than his father, but more importantly, George is above his father in more than one way because unlike his father, George is going to leave Winesburg and potentially be more successful than his own father. Things didn't exactly go the way his father anticipated; however he is still, and forever will be, trapped in Winesburg.

                Finally, even though George has left Winesburg, we know that he hasn't completely been separated from the town. The final lines of the book read "the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood"(Anderson 247). Although George is no longer physically in Winesburg, we know that his memories and experiences from the town and its very interesting people will heavily influence the rest of his life. This shows that nobody can truly escape the town of Winesburg, Ohio.

The Biblical Allusions and Ironic Truth of "Godliness"

              In many of the stories from Winesburg, Ohio, Anderson turns many of the town's characters into grotesques that all experience truths which lead to their downfall. I found the story of "Godliness" to be particularly interesting due to its strong connections to several biblical stories and also its heavily ironic truth it revealed about the main character Jesse.

            Jesse Bentley believes that he is destined by God to fulfill the biblical tale of Jesse. He believes he is destined to achieve greatness, and pass on his farming empire to his son David. Jesse's life is surrounded by the defense mechanism of distortion where Jesse's delusional thinking of fulfilling biblical prophesies control his entire life. However, things do not always go the way Jesse intends. Jesse is not a benevolent leader of his farming empire; He demands his workers to work extremely hard and has become feared by his many of his employees. His wife also works tirelessly on the farm which results in death during childbirth. Unfortunately for him, his only child is a daughter, which means he cannot name is child David to parallel the biblical story.   Also because of the death of her mother, Louise suffers from an incomplete Electra complex and by Freud's definition, is unable to be a fully functioning adult. She however does give birth to a son, and Jesse seizes the opportunity to regain control of his delusional biblical fulfillment.

            The son, who he names David, is taken up by Jesse and lives with him on the farm. But Jesse is now beyond crazy and one day takes David into the woods to sacrifice him to God, much like the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. And in yet another biblical illusion, David takes down Jesse by hitting him in the head with a rock. This is a parallel to the story of David and Goliath. After that David runs away and leaves Winesburg forever.

            Although this story is jam packed with biblical illusions, the part that most interested me was the stark irony of the truth that the story revealed. In his mind, Jesse believes that he is a pious and pure follower of God, but in reality everything that he did in his life was for selfish and greedy reasons. In his effort to fulfill his "destiny", he destroyed the lives of everybody that was close to him including his wife, daughter, and grandson. Moreover, in his grand plan to fulfill this biblical story, Jesse's farming empire will now be destined to die with him.    

The Power of Language in Winesburg, Ohio

The book  Winesburg, Ohio is full of modernist attributes, obviously of course; it is a modernist novel. It has many interesting attributes such as the search for ontological understanding and tightening of the form. But what has really stood out to me is the level of detail and meaning that is packed into seemingly meaningless places. As a modernist attribute, this is referred to as "language is not transparent".   Just as the title "hills like white elephants" was meticulously crafted to provided deep insight into the story, there are many examples of this attribute being put to use throughout the stories we have read in Winesburg, Ohio.

                In the story "Paper Pills" an ordinary scene at the doctor's office turns out to have deep and symbolic meaning. When the woman walks into the office, there is a woman in a white dress getting teeth pulled. This at first does not appear strange or unusual seeing as that is something that doctors do perform on a routine basis. However, this scene is crafted to deeply describe the emotional state of the woman. There are blood stains on the white dress which represent the impurity of the woman as she us no longer pure virginally. Also it is important that the teeth are being pulled because that indicates great personal change, which in the woman's case, represents her recent pregnancy.

                Another important example of this specific word choice is incredibly important is during the story, "Mother". In the story, Elizabeth decides to murder her husband, Tom, with scissors. A little strange, but at this point I've easily realized that nobody is completely normal in this town anyways. Anderson could've chose any weapon of choice- gun, machete, ninja turtles- but he decided to go for scissors specifically; and it wasn’t because it was the first idea that popped into his head. Elizabeth is experiencing a metaphorical reverse oedipal complex in which she wants her son's affection and sees the dad as a rival. Therefore the death by scissors represents the castration anxiety that is associated with the oedipal complex.

                I'll be honest, many times these deep symbolic meanings go right over my head. I read over the word scissors and did not bat an eye. But I guess that while reading any book, especially modernism, it is imperative to be mindful that each and every word could have a deep meaning. Sometimes, when these ideas are presented in class, I think to myself that it might be a little farfetched or just flat out crazy. But when reading modernism, you have to express those crazy ideas and consider the fact that they might actually be true.

                

Thoughts on Phsychoanalysis

                Of course I had heard of Sigmund Freud before, but I had no idea what he had created. In the past week we have learned much about Freud's ideas and concepts of the workings of the human mind. While learning about it, I felt a strange sense of calmness and familiarity towards the subject. I think this is due to the fact that in the past 100 years or so since Freud's ideas came to fruition, society has widely accepted his teachings and they have become a part of our culture. I imagine Freud's ideas, the subconscious and how trapped memories and emotions could have a profound impact on our lives, must have been viewed as crazy at the time.  But learning about these ideas now, in today's society, they don't seem so strange and crazy.

                One of the more interesting topics of psychoanalysis was the defense mechanisms and classifications. There were many mechanisms that I was aware of but perhaps not familiar with the correct terminology. One that I hadn't heard of that I thought was very interesting was dissociation. This is a defense mechanism is very interesting because it allows the person to split of into different people at different times. However, the two or multiple personalities do not know of the existence of the other.  This is fascinating to me because I know that I have never experienced this before, but it is very strange to think that there are people that live like this; and since it is a stage three(neurotic) defense mechanism, a person who does this can still be a function member-or members-  of society.

                Learning about these defense mechanisms has also made me think more closely about how I might use them in my own life. For example, I've  noticed recently that when I watch patriot games on TV, I sometimes bite my nails without even thinking about it. I'm not sure what's going on subconsciously in my brain, but now I suspect that it could be one of those mature mechanism that we learned about, perhaps sublimation.