Blog #2: Darkness in Winesburg, Ohio

I would like to touch upon one question from the Socratic Seminar that second period did not discuss because I thought it was interesting and full of depth. Question 1 asks to analyze a repeated word throughout the novel and I chose darkness. The word “darkness” was repeated in “Hands”, “Paper Pills”, “Mother”, “Nobody Knows”, “Adventure”, “Respectability”, “Tandy”, “The Strength of God”, “The Teacher”, “Loneliness”, “An Awakening”, and “Sophistication”. I found that when the word was used, it was usually used as a location, so really the repetition was of the group of words “in the darkness”. Darkness was used throughout the novel as a motif representing privacy. It is important to indicate privacy in the novel because since Winesburg is such a small town, there is a lack of privacy. In general, when we are in private, we are able to be the truest form of ourselves because there are no people around with preconceived notions or judgments to make us feel like we must act and conform with a certain definition of ourselves. In Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson commonly begins characterizing a new character with a description of their physical appearance, usually bluntly calling them ugly or attractive. Anderson’s use of physical description of a character as one of the first things he mentions about them represents the town’s point of view on the citizens and the importance they put on appearance. Appearance becomes a connotation for characters in Winesburg, such as Wash William’s connection between his ugliness and his alienation and Kate Swift’s sexual appearance in “The Strength of God” matching up with her lustfulness in “The Teacher”. The motif of darkness is important because since it represents privacy, it is often in the darkness that characters are able to be a different form of themselves that is not determined by others because one- They are in the dark so appearances cannot be seen and taken into account of their character and two- the dark is opposite of light so characters may come across as a dichotomy. One character where this analysis of darkness can be seen is Wash Williams. As Wash Williams was telling George his history, “in the gathering darkness, he could no longer see the purple, bloated face and the burning eyes, a curios fancy came to him…In the darkness the young reporter found himself imagining that he sat on the railroad ties beside a comely young man with black hair and black shining eyes. There was something almost beautiful in the voice of Wash Williams, the hideous, telling his story of hate.” (106). Only in the darkness did Wash have a type of beauty to him because instead of his appearance, it was his story that was the most defining aspect of his character at that moment. A similar scene is with Wing Biddlebaum where “In the darkness he could not see the hands and they became quiet.” which is significant because he was always ostracized as an odd character because of his weirdly expressive hands, but in privacy in the darkness he could be something more than just weird because of his hands (14).  In “An Awakening” George Willard was able to reassess himself as a different person than he was before while he was in the darkness because in his privacy he reflected on how he acted like a different, inauthentic person around the influence of others (166-168).

The repetition of the word “darkness” throughout Winesburg, Ohio makes darkness an important motif representing privacy. The privacy of the characters when they are “in the darkness” is reflected in how their characterization becomes different and much more genuine when they are not surrounded by the judgment of others because their appearance cannot be seen. Whenever a character is in the darkness, they are either alone or with George Willard, which is still a private situation because as a reporter George only listens to what the characters have to say and does not comment. Other situations when characters are in the darkness but their characterization is not changing, they are still engaging in actions that are meant to be private and kept from the knowledge of the small town, such as when Elizabeth Willard had thoughts of killing her husband, when the dark girl from “Paper Pills” was raped or engaged in sex, and probably the best example of private actions in the darkness, when George Willard had sex with Louise Trunnion and nobody was meant to know.