Wing Biddlebaum's Ambiguous Actions In Hands By Sherwood Anderson

Although he was confused about what happened, he was sure of one thing and that was “that the hands must be to blame”(252). Wing perceives his hands as a symbol of his perceived guilt, or a manifestation of his fears. They symbolize critical turning points in his life, good and bad. He makes them the core of his actions and who is, allowing them to take control of his life. By personifying Wing’s hands, Anderson makes the consequences of their actions the focus point of the story.

This pushes him to an extreme emotional limit because it represents that his entire life had been a lie and his former noble existence was all false. His desperate attempt to free himself from the world and from knowledge expresses a universal idea that humans are still unknowing and insignificant when compared to the greater spectrum of life. This relates to the theme because it shows that even though the search and curiosity of knowledge is natural, transgressing the limits can be dangerous because sometimes knowledge can be too much of a burden for humankind to handle, however inevitable, necessary, and inescapable it may be.

Throughout the 1950’s, the United States belonged to the Leave It To Beaver era. Families were structured around a strong, hard working father and a wonderful homemaker mother. Children were brought up with solid ideologies on what society expects from them and were warned about living a different and dangerous life. Only one-year separates Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room from there publishing dates during this decade of unwavering beliefs. These texts were seen as extremely controversial during their time due to their themes of homosexuality. Sexual orientation was an awkward topic during such a “to the book” time period and these texts pushed the limits, making them remarkable and memorable works. Both Tennessee Williams and James Baldwin explore the panic men experience while trying to comprehend what sexual orientation they belong to and highlight the masculine gay man. These texts also examine the woman’s role in the mist of it all.

“You can imagine… the dreadful terror of Elizabeth Ann” (1). Fisher tries to put the reader in Elizabeth’s shoes and feel the fear. By doing this, Fisher adds a mood of pity. Instead of making fun of Elizabeth for being afraid, Fisher instead wants the reader to be afraid with her. This shows that Fisher is sympathetic to the plight of Elizabeth.

At the end of the story "Adventure," Anderson writes "began trying to force herself to face bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg (Anderson, Sherwood)." The themes of loneliness and isolation are expressed by describing the characters as grotesques. The grotesques are the people who have become obsessed with an idea or mannerism, such that, they have lost contact with their fellow Man. Anderson sets the course for the theme of isolation in the first three chapters, excluding "The Book of the Grotesque."

Junior is very observant and he describes his mother in a detailed way. He deposits emphasis on his mother’s hands. “One thing about Mami, her palms never sweated.” (27) Junior’s mother is a very lovely person, pretty and knows how to take good care of his sons. In contrast, the Puerto Rican woman is described oppositely of his mother. “She had papery hands, and when she rubbed the towel on my chest, she did it hard, like I was a bumper she was waxing.”(35) According to Junior, the Puerto Rican woman is careless and is not lovely as his mother. This increases his disgust towards his father for being with such a woman that will never be like his mother. This fact supports the idea that his son-father relationship is related to the Freud’s Oedipal Conflict.

In “Hands” by Sherwood Anderson the main character named Wing Biddlebaum is reviewed as an outsider to his town. With him being an outsider he became fragile and shy not wanting to deal

A standout amongst the most fascinating advancements in nineteenth-century American writing school courses as of late has been the presentation of old well known books by ladies to the syllabus. Among works of this kind, E. D. E. N. Southworth 's The Hidden Hand is the book understudies appreciate the most.

Throughout the book, Bailey argues that in cities around the country in the 1960’s, the “ordinary” person battled the constant struggle of both private and public sexual behaviors, which came to follow post WWII in America. Throughout the text, Bailey

The narrator’s internal fight manifests to a physical worry after having his sexual encounter with the fighter. “Feeling stronger, I stepped into the shower and searched for my body for changes. A middle aged man needs to look for tumors” (Alexie 33). He still does not believe that, throughout his suppressed desires and destined sexual act, he is a homosexual. By making sure, he searches his body for marks, a physical stigma that would identify him with the homosexual group he fears to be

If one is silent because of sex, identity will speak. In the excerpt from Jackie Kay’s Trumpet, Kay uses the bandages as a symbol to reveal Joss’ secret, he also critiques the conflicts between sex and identity. Joss “keeps unwrapping endless rolls of bandage” (21) to expose his sex, surprisingly, Millie accepts it in a smooth way which contrasts to the public’s reactions. In this passage, the author critiques the conflicts between biological sexuality and self-identity, also identifies the significance of the bandages which represents Joss’ identity; in the end, Millie’s attitude towards Joss’ identity contrasts to the public’s judgements towards Joss’ sex.

When someone looks up at a bird they see something soaring through the sky free from the world’s troubles. Through out man’s history they have been trying to find a way to be as free as birds and learn to fly. Unfortunately it has been an unsuccessful feat for man to accomplish. Although man has never really been able to fly on their own, they are able to fly with the help from a little machinery and ingenuity. Macon Dead Jr, or milkman, the nickname he adopted because he nursed from his mother, the protagonist of Song Of Solomon by Toni Morrison, had been trying to fly all of his life. But until he discovers his family’s history and his self-identity he unable to discover the secret that has

In this journey our main character also see’s the many faces of the black man, and how all of these faces where created in response to the actions of the white man never in response to one’s own actions. Towards the end of the novel the main character finds himself in a difficult predicament as he is being hounded by men who want him dead. Despite this, he manages to find a pair of glasses and a huge hat which he believes would disguise him just enough so that he can escape his potential murderers. As he walks around Harlem in his new guise, many begin to confuse him for someone called Rinehart who seems to be bookie, a pimp, and a preacher all at once. The ability to be so many things is at first attractive to the main character as he slowly begins to sink into the role of Rinehart, however he soon realizes that Rinehart’s multiple identities are merely a reflection of his inauthenthicity. Rinehart has no true self-consciousness and has allowed for others to create his image for him; Rinehart is only identified in the novel by others, never by himself. Rinehart’s character is representative of the notion of Double Consciousness as it shows the black men without the ability or better yet the privilege of self identity.

The novel “Flight” was a very interesting story about a young boy who seems to be lost in life and has an identity crisis which leads him down the wrong path and makes the poor decision to shoot up a bank. To have the boy come to the conclusion what he was doing was wrong Sherman Alexie sends him to different places and times to show teach him something more, almost like the Scrooge and the many ghosts he encounters in “A Christmas Carol”. I will discuss a few of his “flights” analyzing each flight and his journey from Zits to Michael through emotional encounters and tough lessons.

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman’s life legacy and at the same time the most praised and condemned book of poetry. Although fearful of social scorn, there are several poems in Leaves of Grass that are more explicit in showing the homoerotic imagery, whereas there are several subtle – should I say “implicit” – images woven into the fabric of the book. It is not strange, then, that he created many different identities in order to remain safe. What Whitman faced in writing his poetry was the difficulty in describing and resonating manly and homosexual love. He was to find another voice of his, a rhetoric device, and his effort took two forms: simplified, and subverted word play.