Thursday, June 11, 2009
Anderson's Women
Sherwood Anderson seems curiously sympathetic to women. I say "curiously" probably only because in past readings his narrator struck me more forcibly. George Willard is the perpetual outsider, celebrated by the author and by several characters for his uniqueness of vision. George Willard sees. George Willard listens. George Willard takes on the ancient task of the storyteller, to carry culture through narrative. George tells the stories that are told to him. He tells the stories that the other characters cannot tell. On this reading, however, I am more impressed by the way in which the narrator/author seems to understand the frustrated passions of the female characters. I stopped with the story of Louise Hardy-and here I am thinking of the other post about reading Anderson from a feminist perspective-and wondered what preoccupied Sherwood Anderson in this story. Certainly he focuses on the reawakening that David Hardy makes possible. Yet, he involves the reader more intensely in the life of Louise. To what end? What effect does it create to spend so much time on individual frustration? Do the women have a particular kind of frustration?
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Maybe part of the focus on individual frustration stems from the modern preoccupation with contemporary psychology and the objective vs. the subjective self. I think the universality of "Winesburg" lies in the acknowledgment of personal/spiritual suffering. I think the women suffer more accutely, perhaps from a combination to both give and receive love. Not that this stifled reciprocity is necessarily feminine. We certainly see this with the men at times as well, but they seem to have a more stable support group in other men, whereas the women seem confined to their domestic spheres and don't seem to belong to any type of female support network, which relgates them to the male/female interaction which is so often sexually charged and emotionally bereft.
ReplyDeleteYes-the women are neurotics. Your point about the contemporary psychological theories rings true. In addition, you gesture to the loss of community, to a definition of the domestic and the private that seems to impact women more than men. Other posts have commented on privacy and intimacy in a slightly different way. Interesting key words.
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