"HANDS" by Sherwood Anderson (Psychological Analysis)

            How can a story be about hands, but also about so many other things? Sherwood Anderson's 'Hands,' which is one vignette among many in his book ''Winesburg, Ohio,'' is definitely about hands, but it is also about truth, beauty, and the grotesque.

             In his Memoirs, Anderson tells about the first reactions to Winesburg, Ohio when it was published in 1919. He recalls that it was "widely condemned," described as "a sewer," and its author was called "sex-obsessed." He reports that a woman told him, "I read one of the stories and, after that, I would not touch it with my hands. With the tongs I carried it down into the cellar and put it in the furnace". Hands" was very likely the story referred to by this shocked lady, for the subject of homosexuality was one that most readers in the twenties thought unmentionable.

           Today, however, Anderson's treatment of Wing Biddlebaum's problem seems very delicate. The story of Wing Biddlebaum is a story of hands.' But how can that be? Sherwood Anderson's 'Hands' tells the story of Wing Biddlebaum and it is, indeed, a story of hands. We are introduced to Wing's hands in the same sentence wherein we are told his name. His hands and their nervous flitting remain central as we learn of the derision the people of Winesburg, Ohio, have for this neighbor of theirs. The name 'Wing' was actually given to him in mockery of the way his hands were always fluttering. We learn that Wing 'did not think of himself as in any way a part of the life of the town where he had lived for twenty years,' which tells us of his isolation and loneliness, as does the eager anticipation with which he paces his front porch as the story opens, hoping George Willard will visit him. George seems to be the one person to whom Wing has any connection in the town. The story of friendship between Wing and George is also a story of hands--we learn that Wing's hands, just as his personality, are freed in the presence of young George. In George's company, Wing's hands 'came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression.


               The old man, who is described as fat, frightened, and nervous, seems too ineffectual to be dangerous. His bald forehead — noticed because his nervous hands fiddle about arranging non-existent hair — suggests his loss of strength and virility. The central symbol of this powerful story is, of course, hands, an image that will be important in other stories in Winesburg.Consistently Anderson seems to suggest that hands are made for creative impulses, for communication. Whitman, one of Anderson's favorite authors, said, "What is more or less than a touch?".

             "Hands" haunts us because we recognize in Wing Biddlebaum our own helplessness and we see how thoughtlessly society can persecute what it does not understand. Perhaps we see ourselves in both Wing and in the society that has ruined his life. 


Analysis:

               Published in 1919, 'Hands' falls into the Modernist movement in literature. As many Modernist texts do, 'Hands' seeks to explore the existence of truth and our ability to access it. The story challenges readers to question things presented as truth, and to consider the process whereby we believe we learn true things.

               The text presents several 'facts' that are later called into question. The story is supposedly about a character named Wing Biddlebaum. However, we find out that his real name is Adolph Myers. Similarly, we are also told that Wing (Adolph) is 'a fat little old man' but later we learn 'he was but forty but looked sixty-five,' and thus he isn't old at all. With these reversals of information, the reader is left to wonder what other information presented in the story might be incorrect and whether it is possible to ever know for sure.