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.