9/28/15

Before getting into Winesburg, Ohio, I was a bit nervous that I would not understand the book at all. A compilation of short stories that have strange and peculiar plots and that somehow all relate to each other scared me at first, but as I read about half the book, even before understanding that the book was a coming of age novel about George, I understood that the short stories were more like a novel. The plots may have been completely different from each other, but what I noticed is that the characters are all extremely similar. Of course, they all live in the small, almost depressing town of Winesburg, and this “small town life” really affected all of these unique but similar characters. Each one had a similar struggle, and the small town restricted these interesting characters from solving this struggle. Throughout the novel, the biggest struggle was loneliness, which is also a repeated word throughout the book. They are all lonely in their own ways, but overall, these similar feelings connected to prove something about human nature – that the inability to communicate and express oneself may lead to loneliness. In the chapter titled Adventure, a young woman named Alice had a typical case of loneliness – the love of her life left and forgot about her, and this led to Alice waiting for him for almost a decade, and not just for this specific person, but for the general feeling of being loved. Her almost unexplainable desire (although many of us can relate to her) led her to being a tragic and lonely character. Loneliness is also represented in the chapter titled Loneliness (of course), where a young man named Enoch escapes to the city to study art, but cannot express his ideas to other humans, so he makes up his own characters in his mind because he knows that they will understand him. His inability to communicate with others makes him a lonely character because he would rather be alone than with others, even if his time “alone” is with people from his mind. Every single character goes through situations where they felt misunderstood, which ultimately leads to loneliness. Even George, the one who hears all the stories from the rest of the characters, feels this loneliness because while he is listening to others, he never takes the time to express himself. Ultimately, his transition into adulthood was partially caused by him realizing that being understood is important. However, although this novel is mainly about George Willard, I don’t believe that he is necessary to one of the themes, which is: oftentimes, the inability to communicate and be understood can lead to a sense of loneliness. I can prove through every character that this statement is correct, and I don’t need to bring up George’s coming of age story to prove my point. And that’s what I realized from Winesburg, Ohio – that not all of the plots have to be connected to make a compilation of short stories a novel. The setting and theme were the two things that definitely joined the chapters into one.

--Natalie Geisel, period 6