Biography

Sherwood Anderson grew up in Ohio, married into a successful business family, and became the manager of a mail-order house. When he was nearing middle age, he left his wife, job, and stability and moved to Chicago to pursue his literary dreams. He wrote many tales depicting small-town life in the Midwest and had his first great success with Winesburg, Ohio (1916), an important work of experimental fiction set in a small-town environment. Anderson wrote simple, direct sentences, transferred his point-of-view to outside observers, and portrayed a slice of life rather than the large panorama of an epic tale; many subsequent writers, such as Hemingway and Faulkner, were influenced by his style. Anderson's short-story collections, in addition to Winesburg, Ohio, include The Triumph of the Egg (1921), Horses and Men (1923), and Death in the Woods and Other Stories (1933).

Explorations

Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio stories (1919) are often regarded as transitional, as occupying a place between the local colorists and regionalists at the turn of the century and the high Modernists such as Faulkner and Hemingway. One of the more famous tales in the set, "Queer," allows us to see the sophistication and complexity of Anderson's realism. In this story, a more-or-less ordinary human being is forced into questioning how his culture defines and determines the sane and the "normal" -- and a realist narrative contemplates the oddity and the contingency of the real.

1. Late in "Queer," Elmer considers jumping a freight train, leaving town, to "lose himself in the crowds," "become like other men," and "be indistinguishable." Is Elmer planning a kind of suicide? A kind of spiritual transcendence? What exactly does he want to escape? Will he ever be able to escape it?

2. Elmer regards George Willard as a threat. Why? How are we to regard him? What does Willard represent that is so upsetting to Elmer?

3. Discuss the narration in "Queer." What is Anderson's implicit relationship to his own characters? Does he treat them sympathetically? Does he condescend? Compare the opening of "Queer" to the opening of Crane's The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky. How are they similar? What other similarities do you see between the two stories and their narrative techniques?

Other sites to consult:

• The Winesburg Photo Album. Images from Clyde, Ohio, the inspiration for Winesburg, Ohio, in Anderson's book of the same name. Includes textual passages keyed to the images.
• Sherwood Anderson biography. From the Sherwood Anderson Foundation site.
• American Modernism: Sherwood Anderson. Includes a biography, brief overview, and study questions. From the PAL: Perspectives in American Literature site maintained by Paul P. Reuben (California State University, Stanislaus).