Sherwood Anderson, in his masterpiece Winesburg, Ohio, "wrote against the idea that stories must have a plot which reveals an idea or a moral conclusion” (Prof. Fisher, lecture). Like the “tales” that Doctor Parcival tells George Willard in “The Philosopher,” Anderson's short stories also seem “to begin nowhere and end nowhere” (51). As readers, we must, like George Willard, decide whether such stories are little more than "a pack of lies" or whether "they contain the very essence of truth" (51). The ability (or lack thereof) of his characters and narrator to distinguish between "lies" and "truth" is one of Anderson's central concerns. The people of Winesburg, Ohio are acutely aware of the powerlessness of words to express any form of truth or meaning. Words, on the contrary, serve as obstacles to the discovery of “truth.” But it's not just Anderson's characters who understand the powerlessness of words. The narrator, as we will see, also struggles to find the words that can express the “truth.” It is no surprise, then, that the "truth" in Winesburg, Ohio, takes a "vague" and amorphous form that can only be described using the vaguest, most amorphous words: "thing ". Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Present in almost every story of Winesburg, Ohio, is a form of what Lionel Trilling called the "laconic American », a sort of masculine refusal of words and language (Prof. Fisher, conference). Anderson's characters are intensely aware of the inability of words to capture, express, and explain any form of truth or meaning. In “Mother,” Elizabeth Willard prays that her son, George, “be allowed to express something for both of us” (40). She said to herself: "He is groping, trying to find himself... He is not an imbecile, all words and intelligence. In him, there is something secret which strives to grow. It is the thing that I allow to be killed in myself” (43) In this case, “words” are presented as an obstacle to both the search for the self and the expression of a vague “something”. ", of some vague "truth" Similarly, Kate Swift urges George to "not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people think, not what they say" (. 162) Once again, “words” are considered powerless, “simple” here; what matters is not the words people say, but the feelings and thoughts behind those words Helen. White realizes "that the world was full of meaningless people saying words" (239), George Willard decides not to use "speeches" because they "seemed totally useless" (237), and the artist Enoch realizes that “he knew what he had to say”. wanted to say, but he also knew he could never say it” (169). The case of Enoch provides a good example of Anderson's belief in the powerlessness and uselessness of words to convey truthful meaning. Enoch is an artist who hangs out with “talking artists” who “talk and talk” and who believe that speaking “is much more important than that” (169). Not only are words presented as impotent, but they are also seen as irrelevant. No words can ever convey the truth of Enoch's paintings; as he says: “The image you see does not consist of what you see and say words about” (169). Words do not exist in the same domainthat the "truths" of Enoch's paintings and, as such, are not only completely unnecessary, but, given the context, completely absurd. But what exactly are these mysterious “truths” that are Anderson’s characters? unable to name with “mere words?” Unlike words, which are fixed and inflexible, the "truth" in Winesburg, Ohio, never takes a definite form and, as such, is incapable of being captured in concrete words. In the “Book of the Grotesque,” ​​Anderson tells us: That in the beginning, when the world was young, there were many thoughts but no truth. Man created the truths himself and eachthe truth was a mixture of a large number of vague thoughts. Everywhere in the world there were truths and they were all beautiful... And then people arrived. Each one, as he appeared, grasped one of the truths and some, strong enough, grasped a dozen. It was the truths that made people grotesque... He felt like the moment one of the people took one of the truths, truths for himself, called it his truth and tried to live his life according to her, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a lie (24). “Truths” are made up of “many vague thoughts,” they are essentially formless and “vague” with no definite form or definite meaning. “Truths” become “lies” when Anderson’s characters attempt to possess them, as one would possess a solid, possessed object. In Anderson's world, when people try to "own" a truth, when they try to define it, to give it a name and a form, to use it as a "model" that can be explained and discussed, it is then that the truth becomes a “lie”. “Truths” resist names, they resist labels and words, and are constantly changing and reforming themselves. For example, in “Paper Pills,” Doctor Reefy erects “little pyramids of truth” and “after erecting them, he knocks them down so that he can have the truths to erect other pyramids” (35). Later, he forms a “truth that arises gigantic in his mind. The truth has darkened the world. It became terrible then faded and the little thoughts started again” (37), thoughts that he ends up stuffing in his pocket to “become round and hard”. balls" (38). The "truths" therefore resist a defined form, they are "pyramids" which are overturned, they are "round and hard balls", and they resist singularity; that is to say to say that no "gigantic" truth can ever replace the multitude of truths that exist. Essentially, "truth" as it operates in Winesburg, Ohio, is formless, vague, unnamable, and innumerable. It is not only Anderson's characters who are unable to name "truth" or express it in words, but also Anderson's omnipotent narrator In "Sophistication", Anderson's narrator uses multiple. uses the intentionally vague word "thing" to describe (or at least hint at) the truth and meaning of what his characters are experiencing. For example, when Helen and George are walking together at night, Anderson writes: "In the spirit. of each was the same thought, “I came to this place and here is this other,” such was the substance of the thing felt. » 241)... "She took his arm and walked beside him in dignified silence. For some reason they could not have explained that they had both gotten from their silent evening together what they had need man or boy, woman or girl, they had to do it a moment of taking what makes the mature life of men and women possible in the modern world” (243)...