Homework for Oct. 10 - concerning Winesburg, Ohio

Answer either or more
1. We have previously mentioned in class the term "grotesque": do some research on the concept and try to justify how it relates to what you are reading.

2. Is what you are reading realist or naturalist in anwyay? How? (again, do some research on these aesthetical-periodological terms of art and literature)

3. "Hands" is the opening chapter. Why a body part and this specific one? Justify your answer with some close reading from excerpts of the short story.

4. Critic Joseph Dewey has referred to the sequence "Godliness" as a "harsh caricature of Puritanism" (artcile "No God in the Sky" in the Norton edition of Winesburg, Ohio, p. 195). Does Jesse Bentley personify that caricature? And what about Louise Bentley?


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  1. Gavin Lafferty12 de outubro de 2017 às 07:29


    The obvious reason is that Wing Biddlebaum’s hands are at the crux of all of his problems. His restless hands that bring him fame in his new life are the reason he had to leave his old life. He was once a successful schoolteacher but always had a habit of caressing his pupil’s heads and touching them on the shoulders. When one student came in after a strange dream talking about how the teacher molested him, the other students began to think of all of the touching they had received from their teacher. Adolph Myers, as this was his name in his past life, was forced to flee the town and start over fresh. In the new town he lives in constant fear of something similar happening as he clearly has a problem controlling his hands. We can see by the quote “The slender expressive fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets or behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression” that Biddlebaum’s hands are expressive and represent who this man is. They not only are to be blamed for his past but constantly determine who he is in present day. I think the author chose the hands as the opening chapter name and also as the body part that would be of so much importance in the entire short cycle because hands are a direct extension of one’s body. They extend the most outward and give the body incredible ability and life. Hands are what we work with, greet people with, feel with, and express emotion with. The fact that Biddlebaum’s hands are always in motion and constantly try to hide themselves gives us a good idea of what kind of character he is. Biddlebaum, like his hands, constantly wants to hide away from the public in fear that his past may one day be discovered.

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