The Book of the Grotesques

Many critiques of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, argue that the book is a collection of short stories rather than a novel; however, quit to the contrary, Winesburg Ohio is a novel detailing the growth and development of a boy named George Willard. Each story in the novel contributes to the maturing of George Willard, and in the end, the boy leaves on an “adventure” that could lead to his eventual development from an adolescent to a man.
The first chapter of the novel sets up the theme for the story of George Willard. In this primary chapter, “The Book of The Grotesque,” Anderson develops the idea of omnipresent “truths.” These truths can destroy people; however, they do not destroy the narrator because a bit of his youthful innocence remains. This example suggests that the truths are only destructive if you let them destroy your hopes and dreams, but if you let the truths help you grow and become more alive and interesting, then the truths will help you become a mature, functional adult.
Each chapter subsequently either makes mention of George Willard or of a person somehow connected to or involved with George Willard. These supporting chapters each present a unique truth, a truth that has ruined the subject of the chapter. The subjects of these chapters, or those close to the subjects of these chapters, then try to teach George Willard the truth that has destroyed them. Not only do these people attempt to explain the truth to young George Willard, but they also try to clarify the means by which these truths destroy them. In this manner, these people hope to save George Willard from destruction by the truths; however they don’t want to protect him from the truths either. Like the narrator in the first chapter, they want George to understand the truths in order to grow and become a more interesting, life-loving person.
In the final chapter of the novel, Willard leaves for his final adventure. Anderson writes that, as Willard was preparing for his departure, “He thought of little things –Turk Smollet wheeling boards through the main street of his town in the morning, a tall woman, beautifully gowned, who had once stayed overnight at his father’s hotel, Butch Wheeler the lamp lighter of Winesburg hurrying through the streets on a summer evening and holding a torch in his hand, Helen White standing by a window in the Winesburg post office and putting a stamp on an envelope.” Willard is thinking of the “little things” because these little people, these inconsequential, obscure people, are the people who changed his mindset and subsequently, his life. The lives of these virtually unknown people showed George Willard the sadness of the truths, the depressing nature of a world ruled by truths, but they also showed him that there was hope. Not for them but for George Willard, who was young and vibrant, who had time to understand all that life held in store. So, with these people in mind, George leaves for his adventure to become a master of the truths.
Understanding this, it is very likely that George Willard is, in fact, the narrator in the first chapter. After he has completed his adventure, he understands the nature of the truths and how to live without the truths destroying him. In understanding this, he remembers everyone who taught this to him—“the grotesques”— his friends from Winesburg, Ohio. From these flashbacks, George Willard writes his novel –“The Book of the Grotesques”—to show others how they to can save themselves from destruction by the truths.