Struggle For Speech

Winesburg, Ohio, the masterpiece of Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), is an important realistic work in modern American literature, in which Anderson depicted a group of isolated and alienated grotesques. Anderson’s concern over the grotesques in this novel assumes great significance in American literature.On the basis of analysis and generalization of varied views of critics home and abroad, this thesis believes Winesburg, Ohio is a story about struggles for speech made by the grotesques in the small town who desired to express love and thoughts to others and to re-establish the bridge of communication towards the outside world. The thesis traces the main thread of the stories that every grotesques had strong desires to express something and focuses on the different types of struggles for speech made by them. This thesis is composed of six parts.Introduction gives a brief account of the author, the literature review of the novel and the layout of this thesis.Chapter One is the exploration of the first type of the struggle from economic angle. that is, struggles in the period of the economic transition. It reveals that Sherwood Anderson, who had witnessed the influence the "machine civilization" made on agricultural society, held deep hatred to the inhuman canker of this emergent culture, desired to return to the traditional agricultural culture, and hoped to restore human creativity and imagination through the hard work of hands.Chapter Two is the description of the second type from social perspective, that is, struggles bound by shackles of traditional morality and Puritanism. Here it starts from the relations between genders and images of female, and take Alice Hindman in "Adventure" and Kate Swift in "The Teacher" for example, strive to depict how traditional morality and Puritanism ruined their lives and made them "speechless".Chapter Three is an analysis of the third type in terms of the function of discourse. Through the depiction of grotesques who had recourse to the discourse to communicate but became more isolated and lonely eventually, the thesis attempts to reveal the meaninglessness and deceptiveness of discourse, and grotesques cannot rely on the discourse to communicate with others.Chapter Four indicates that Anderson points out a way out for grotesques in Winesburg. The thesis attempts to further analyses the nature of grotesques and the content of speech. On discussion of moments of understanding and George Willard’s growth and departure, the thesis points out that Anderson offers scope for the achievement of love and mutual understanding.And the thesis ends off with a conclusion that what Anderson depicted in the story of the Midwestern town is the universal living condition of human beings. He not only created typical images of the grotesques who struggle for speech and have been in pursuit of love and understanding, but also placed his hopes on human breaking the walls of loneliness. The story of "grotesques" in Winesburg, Ohio is a myth of American isolation as well as consideration of the universal living condition of human beings that has real meaning for contemporary literary criticism.