Some thoughts on the ‘grotesques’ in Winesburg, Ohio.

From Malcom Cowley’s Introduction to Winesburg, Ohio (1960):

“[The grotesques’] lives have been distorted not, as Anderson tells us in his prologue, by their each having seized upon a single truth, but rather by their inability to express themselves. Since they cannot truly communicate with others, they have all become emotional cripples.”

From Irving Howe’s The Book of the Grotesque (1951):

“The grotesques are those whose humanity has been outraged and who to survive in Winesburg have had to suppress their wish to love. … Grotesqueness, then is not merely the shield of deformity; it is also a remnant of misshapen feeling…”

“The grotesques rot because they are unused, their energies deprived of outlet, and their instincts curdled in isolation.”

From David D. Anderson’s The Grotesques and George (1964):

“…the individuals [Anderson] is dealing with in the stories have each been twisted into psychological shapes having, in most cases, little to do with external appearance. This distortion results from both the narrowness of their own vision and that of others; in some cases the first is primarily at fault, while in others it is the latter.”