Sherwood anderson and his Winesburg, Ohio as a Bildungsromans Dr Mohan B.*, Srikala B.** *Associate Professor in English, S.V. College of Engineering and Technology, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India **Mentor in English, APIIIT, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, R.K Valley, Idupulapaya, Kadapa Dt, Andhra Pradesh, India Online published on 11 July, 2017. Abstract Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) was a prolific, profound, provocative and perceptive writer of short stories. Further, it is acknowledged that he “remained a profound, provocative and perceptive writer to the end, and that he has much to say” to the present time. The short story became the most popular of fictional forms at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially in America. Frank O Connor, who had an acute sense of national values, was led on to declare way back in 1963 that “the Americans have handled the short story so wonderfully that one can say that it is a national art form”. However, if Winesburg, Ohio is approached from the direction not of the subjects of the tales but from that of George Willard, a boy growing to manhood and becoming involved in the perplexing world of adults, developing from an aimlessly curious boyhood to an intensely conscious adulthood, the work composes as bildungsroman, the “novel of formation” or “novel of education” which portrays the development of the protagonist's mind and character as he passes from childhood through varied experiences into maturity and the recognition of his identity and role in the world. Among the more famous novels of formation are Charles Dickens, David Copperfield and Great Expectations, George Meridith's The Egoist and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. There is a difference between these and Winesburg, Ohio. In all the others the focus is invariably on the growing protagonist, and his growth is traced or is traceable from stage to stage. But Anderson's work is a collection of tales about a number of people and also the story of a growing young man, George Willard, George appears in sixteen of the stories in different capacities. There is no mention of him at all in Paper Pills and all the four parts of Godliness. In three of the tales-Adventure, Tandy and The Untold Lie there is only a passing mention of his name or reference to him. In only four of the tales-Nobody Knows, An Awakening, Sophistication and Departure-he may be said to be the protagonist. And in the remaining stories he is a secondary character of varying importance. Top |