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Choopman

Sixty years after its first publication, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio continues to stand as a ‘classic’ of modernist American fiction. Anderson effectively paralleled his life with short stories describing members of his own hamlet of Clyde, Ohio. The actions of his fellow Ohio residents inspired him to create these stories outlining the lives of his peers. Sherwood Anderson was greatly influenced by the ideology, small-town politics, and interpersonal conflicts of his childhood in a small town in Ohio.
Sherwood Anderson was born on September 13, 1876, in Camden, Ohio. In 1884, Anderson and his family moved to the small town of Clyde, Ohio. (Mahoney 19) Clyde, Ohio is the model for the town of Winesburg   (Mahoney 20). Anderson loathed his drunk of a father because of the lack of love shown to his mother and resented him because of the humiliation and poverty that his endeavors had caused   (Mahoney 21). Two major events shaped the feelings of Anderson about life. First, when he was only nineteen years old, Anderson's mother died, and his family pursued to split apart   (Mahoney 22). Anderson had a mental breakdown due to two things. The pressures of trying to succeed in business and writing and the conflict between his yearning to leave his unhappy marriage to Cornelia and his commitment to his family caused a breakdown that doctors diagnosed as nerve exhaustion   (Mahoney 22). His collection of short stories known as Winesburg, Ohio, chronicles his life in a rural Ohio town, telling stories of frustration, angst, and cultural “letdowns.” (White)
Within Winesburg, Ohio, there are three storytellers. There is George Willard, the town reporter, there is "the writer" at the beginning of the text, who is supposedly telling the story of all the characters in the book, and there is the most powerful storyteller, Sherwood Anderson. The two characters reflect Anderson himself, and unlike other writers, they are not meant to present a moral or a philosophy (Modlin...