Story Cycle: Community Imagination and Imaginary Community

聯篇故事與社區想像

Spring, 2007

A Seminar with Prof. Chen Chi-szu
Latest Update: 2007/03/20

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Notes on Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (III), 2007/03/20

 

I. List of Parallel Stories:


What is common in the each of following pair? To grasp these pairs together, can you find a pattern of construction in Anderson’s narrative? What is each pair’s contribution to the illustration of the theme of grotesque?

  1. “Paper Pills” and “Mother” : about marriage
  2. “Godliness” and “A Man of Ideas”: about the shaping/distorting forces of age/ideas
  3. “Adventure” and “Respectability”: about betrayal
  4. “The Thinker” and “Tandy”: about loneliness and love
  5. “The Strength of God” and “The Teacher”: about the private life of respectable public figures
  6. “Hands” and “`Queer’”: about futility to respond to public opinions and the norms
  7. “Loneliness” and “An Awakening”: about loneliness

　

II. List of Continuing Stories:

How does Franco Moretti’s theory on “bildungsroman” fit it the narrative about George Willard? Is Morreti’s theory suitable for explaining the scenario of the female characters in this composite novel? Why?
Moretti, Franco. “The Way of the World: The Bildungroman in European Culture.”

  1. Elizabeth Willard: “Mothers”à ”Death”:

  2. George Willard’s growth through interaction with female characters:

•    Initiation:  “Nobody Knows” (Louise Trunnion)

•    “Respectability” (Bell Carpenter)

•    “The Thinker” (Helen White)

•    ”Awakening” (Bell Carpenter)

•    Instruction: “The Strength of God” and “The Teacher” (Kate Swift)

•    “Mother”à”Death” (his mother)

•     “The Thinker”à”Sophistication” à “Departure” (Helen White)

  1. George Willard’s growth through interaction with male characters:

•    “Adventure”—Ned Currie, a former reporter of Winesburg Eagle

•    “Loneliness”—Enouch Robinson,  a peer artist-writer

•    “The Thinker”—Seth Richmond, a competitor for Helen White

III. Looking at map provided by Anderson and locate the setting of each of the characters.

  1.  Can you recognize a spatialization of gender?

  2. What are the social statuses and symbolic function of "Winesburg Eagle" and "New Willard House"?

　

　

IV. Here are a list of the stories that related to the motif of “the young thing.” What is the young thing? What is its function to each character’s rite of passage?

•    “The Book of Grotesque”

•    “Paper Pills”: the seed of something very fine

•    “Mother”

•    “The Teacher”

•    “Loneliness”

•    “Sophistication”

 

　

Chen Chi-szu,
Assistant Professor,
English Department,
Tamkang University

kiss7445@mail.tku.edu.tw:

Office: 
(02)26215656 ext.2966
Room: FL632