Sherwood Anderson

“Hands”

Analysis.

The text under analysis which is called “Hands” is presented by Sherwood

Anderson. He was an American novelist, short story writer, known for subjective

and self-revealing works. He had numerous short stories, like “The triumph of the

Egg”, “Horses and men”, “Death in the woods and other stories’. Among them

there was “Hands”.

The central figure of this story is alone middle-aged man Wing Biddlebaum

whose real name was Adolf Myers, and the gist of the story centers around his

hands. The events described in the story took place in Pennsylvania and Ohio,

Winesburg. He was a school teacher and he loved his students and expressed this

love by touching and caressing them. He spoke dreamily and with his hands and

voice tried to convey the dream into the hearts of the young boys. But he was

misunderstood by other people who were the fathers of these boys. They kicked

them and Adolf had to escape. For that reason, he removed to Winesburg. There,

he picked the strawberries for a living and was given a nickname Wing

Biddlebaum, because of his restless hands which reminded some people of an

imprisoned bird beating his wings. In the town Wing had only one friend, George

Willard, a reporter for the local newspaper. While with George Wing felt free and

secure, however, during one encounter with him Wing touched his friend’s

shoulder and became frightened and ran off home. But before he said to the boy to

dream, to develop and make progress, and boy followed his advice. Now Wing

stayed alone again. As soon as he removed to Ohio, he was afraid to express

himself through his hands, because he knew that it would bring him a lot of

trouble. Therefore, Wing was isolated from the town life.

The core of the problem raised in the story is that we, people,

condemn others who differ from us. The reader grasps the idea that in the society

there are not similar people and we should accept them in the way they are. The

theme of the story is relationships between people. This story gives food for

thought. The author provokes the reader through the message to consider that you

should be tolerant to others, and when person is unlike you, this phenomenon is

normal. The text is written by a 3rd person narrative. It can be consider as social

and psychological story. The author reveals split in human life and putrid nature of

people. The main character Wing is protagonist, because he tries to bring goodness

into people’s life, but instead of it, he takes disapproval. Also he’s a flat character

as he doesn’t change and remain kind-hearted person in spite of blame and

detestation of society. In this story the author leads to dramatical effect and it is

very sad to read this story.

As for composition of the story, there are exposition, complication and

denouement, i.e the story with open structure. The text begins with the exposition.

The complication consists of two parts. In the first part, we see Wing’s life in

Winesburg, who is the town’s mystery. In the second part the author uses

flashback about a school life of Wing. Here he collides with the misunderstanding

of people because of his hands which are symbol of his love to other people. And

in the denouement the author depicts the solitary life of Wing Biddlebaum.

In conclusion of my analysis, I’d like to say that it is very in-depth story

which can happen in reality. The author manifests that some peculiar traits of

character and features can cause hostility of people. I like this story, because it

makes me induce to be a good, kind, understanding person.