Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

142.Victimization Literature: Anderson, Garland, Conrad, Wilder, Ibsen, Hardy!

                                                        Anderson, Garland, Conrad, Wilder

       Victims of society and more especially of themselves, Anderson's characters in Winesburg, Ohio, like those of Garland's Main Traveled Roads, suffer from the own inability to break out of society's definition of meaning. Like the characters in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, they cannot escape the small-town mentality that disillusions and limits their capacity to love. Lost and guilt-ridden like the heroes in Conrad's novels,  these victims reflect on their lives, only to discover that purpose and providence have little bearing on the events of their past; but rather, the brief moments of seemingly little significance have directed and determined their fate, moments which they tragically only comprehend years after the occurrence. Each of Anderson's  main characters relives his life questioning its value and influence, sadly recognizing the lost opportunities and subsequent loneliness, suffering, and despair associated with each irretrievable choice. Existing in alienation and isolation, the characters only too late discover their unfulfilled need for love and acceptance, too late to realize that, like the victims in Steinbeck's Pastures of Heaven,  other choices leave them empty and forlorn, without resolution, without hope. The irony of each character's talent, as opposed to the destructive force of public prejudice, compels them to withdraw from society and forfeit all  dreams of hope and joy . Much like the stories of Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the events in the characters' lives seemingly have little relevance in terms of an overall scheme. Only after years of recollection does any semblance of order appear, and then only in fleeting images.  A chance word, a gesture, or  an unspoken response command as much or more influence than an overt act. 

                In Anderson's "Hands,"  a teacher with huge hands is fired for caring too much for his pupil's education. In "Paper Pills," a doctor shows true love  and compassion for a victimized young woman, whom he later marries, and  then, sadly,  he  dies shortly thereafter. To him, the truths of life which he rolled into small little  pills proved as useless as the tiny  balls themselves. Unlike many of the victims of Faulkner's novels who survive from war and loss in any way possible, Anderson's heroes cannot perceive the opportunities that even an immoral character would undertake. They are too noble,  too shy,  too innocent, or too blind to recognize the distinction between the appearance of  emotional fulfillment and the manner of its inner attainment. Enduring the despair of a Hardyesque fatalism , Anderson's characters suffer immensely at the hands of chance or moment. In one story, a  woman desperate to love and be loved, after being abandoned by her companion, runs naked through the streets to vent her anguish and frustration, only to return home in greater shame and humiliation. In another, a pastor who struggles against lust, after seeing a young teacher undress  as he stands near his his bell tower window, goes insane, believing God has put her there to teach him temperance. In another,  a man overwhelmed by the pressure of hard labor works to support a wife whom he does not love, nor does she love him;  yet after a one-night affair, she marries him  out of social convention, a man who cannot honestly tell his best friend that marriage is best without" telling a lie." In another, a  man deceives a young woman by telling her he loves her, then abandons her and laughs about it , saying, "Nobody knows!" In yet another, a young man drinks and dreams of Helen , the school teacher whom he envisions loving him. This is the sad irony that one  would even need a drink to create a dream.

                Much like the outcasts of Ibsen's plays or Dostoyevsky's novels, these heroes suffer from naivete and the damaging social conventions of their time.  Anderson strongly criticizes the notion that marriage is best, as do both Ibsen in A Doll's House and Hardy in Jude the Obscure. As George Willard leaves Winesburg, Ohio to escape, he sadly leaves Helen , the teacher whom he loves at the mercy of a scholar whom she fears her parents will force her to marry, though the young student's interest rests solely in her wealth. Oh, what could have been, should have been, but alas, too late, too late!

                                                                         Works Cited

Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. Pennsylvania: The Franklin Library, 1979.