Spatial Form In Winesburg, Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio, one of the most important works of Sherwood Anderson, established his reputation in literature history. It received wide attention and was researched by critics. However, the form of the book is always beyond the attention of critics.For a long time Winesburg, Ohio has been regarded as a collection of short stories, which is not accurate. The treatise analyzes the features and reasons of spatial form in the book and its influence on writers following Anderson, especially on Faulkner. We hold that the book has foretold the employment of spatial form. And Winesburg, Ohio is a spatial fiction rather than a collection of short stories.In the second chapter, the observation is concentrated on the features of spatial form in Winesburg, Ohio. Both juxtaposition and reflexive reference are conspicuous features in spatial form. And the disagreement of narrator, moments of being and the tendency of inward turn all work in constructing a spatial form.The third chapter focuses on the reasons of spatial form. To the grotesques, their blind belief in language leads to their being trapped in time. Realizing this, Anderson has to turn to spatial form to get him out of the dilemma of time. Still, the historical background plays a role. After the Civil War, the economic development and industrialization changed the sense of time. To express the resistance to the overdeveloping industrial civilization, Anderson naturally turns to spatial form to show the frozen moment in his works.