Fish Bowls and Oceans
The process of growth and maturation, is, as it must be, a procedure filled with pain and difficulty, where the grotesque being that dominated the youth, is overcome and replaced by the complete being who will govern the life of the adult. Winesburg Ohio examines all the components and characters who contributed to the maturation of George Willard, and each person's, or rather each grotesque's, donation of either knowledge or experience proved vital to George's existence, because without the contributions George would be forever stuck in the purgatory of Winesburg Ohio, unable to break free into the world and would soon himself become a grotesque. Carl Jung, one of the foremost examiners of Archetypes or Grotesques, explained why George's journey cannot be easy but must be done, "A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them." A man must first therefore gain his experiences, negative and positive, in a closed environment where pain and pleasure is amplified in order to become a completely whole person able to seek many truths in the broad scheme of the world.
George is able to differentiate himself from the rest of his small town because he is able to broaden focus away from singular aspects of his life and therefore is able to accept all the insight the citizens are able to provide. So just like Doctor Reefy with his little balls of paper every experience in George's life is pocketed, stirring within his mind, after all the pieces of paper are Doctor Reefy's thoughts which have, "become little hard round balls," soon "dumped out upon the floor." The importance of the act of dumping the paper on the floor, lies in the singular insignificance of Reefy's papers, and similarly George's Experience, simply having a pocket or mind full is more powerful than a individual memory which would be dwelled upon without much progress. George's collection of proverbial pieces of paper, consists of love and loss, fear and courage, all moments touched on during the book's examination of George's life in Winesburg Ohio, allow him to continuously draw upon different experiences as he matures through life.
The constantly shifting focus, is what differentiates George from a character like Doctor Parcival, whose obsession with his own past skews his perception of not only the people of Winesburg but their ideas and perceptions of him. This false reality is a direct result of a lack of love from Parcival's mother, which therefore led Parcival to act only in a way to please his mother, to act like his brother. "My mother loved my brother much more than she did me," (38) The truth of the matter is that there is nothing Parcival could have done to win his mother's love away from his brother, so every action he does is futile because he chose to follow only one truth, that a mother should love her son, and though the truth was right and just, because Parcival "called it his truth, and tried to live by it he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood." (6) And soon Parcival comes to represent the epitome of Sherwood Anderson's argument against grotesques and singular truth, because Parcival, by way of subtle hints and then a sort of sick hope, begins to beg for his own downfall, but only for the amusement of the people, "everyone will get excited, I will be hanged to a lamp post on main street." His thirst for some sort of attention cumulating in the wish for death, if it only means he will receive the notice, his mother never provided
The main problem with any one persons focus on a singular truth is the inherent dishonesty that lies within the attachment. Every person no matter how bland or how empty is a multi faceted human being and therefore focus on a singular topic, leads to the ignorance of all the other aspects in a person life. Take for example the story of Prince Hamlet, Hamlet a man destined for greatness, smart courageous and in a position of power, who decides to throw all his prospects and goals to the wind in exchange for the opportunity to revenge his father, murdered in cold blood. Such a single minded focus begins to quickly harm Hamlet mentally as it should, clouding Hamlets ability to do what is best for himself, and to think clearly, because then Hamlet could have realized the impossibility in murdering someone without being a murderer. A man should live before all for himself, "To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." The world of Hamlet becomes a death ridden tragedy because no one lived for themselves, each character had an agenda a singular focus, that narrowed their view and opened them to an untimely death. Because the death of King Hamlet consumed everyone so thoroughly they did not bother to draw on other experiences in their life as they made decisions, instead acting rashly and the chaos of motives and actions can only rightly end in death. And though for the most part, the people of Winesburg Ohio never meet an untimely death, they many never reach their true calling and goals, whether in life or love. "Many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg" (112) as Alice is destined to live alone, because she has a singular truth, her absent lover who long ago left her, and therefore he is never rolled into a tiny ball of paper, to be tossed into a pocket and then onto the floor, instead she will look at her paper truth, tears destroying the only semblance of hope she has left.
The difference between Winesburg, Ohio and the rest of the world is one not dissimilar to the relationship to Fishbowls and Oceans. After all Winesburg Ohio is simply a Microcosm of all the grotesques the world has to offer, ranging from the ugly and failing to that of the beautiful but still equally as unfulfilling to the soul because of their singularity. Winesburg is much like a fishbowl, covered and then thrown into the middle of the ocean, because it inhabitants are not completely isolated from the outside world, they may see it and judge it as they please, but their actions are wholly isolated to only effect the immediate town around them. After all Winesburg is a pre industrial revolution town, almost completely self sufficient from the rest of the world, where laborers and the men who hired then can do more than order and toil, As evidenced by the writer who talks not only to the workmen of the task at hand but also, "of other things" (3)because they both can afford to take life at a more relaxed place without the weight of the entire world egging them on. And just like a fishbowl, inhabitants may leave and may come in, to either find their place in the world well prepared by what they learned in Winesburg, or be sent to the fishbowl, destined to be on display as a grotesque, a lesson for those passing through. And then if only to explore deeper, each person within himself is an microcosm of everything around him, an miniature example of success or failure, and of the scars and scrapes inflicted upon him or by the world in which he has passed through, David Bohm, a physicist an expert on the molecular workings of the universe explained " In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe." The translucency of man is matched only by his opaqueness; for everything we see within man, it is impossible to see through man as a whole, as philosophers and seekers of truth, "for now we see through a glass darkly," (Corinthians 13:12) truth is masked by truth and lies the same. So then the question arises, is it even possible to find a universal truth, or will the search leave only dissolution and a blind arrogance in its wake, where everyone in their constant cycling of truths loses and appreciation for truth in general, by cycling between truths, having a group of truths becomes in itself a single truth, and the isolated focus on that single truth in turn makes it a falsehood, similarly how the writer, when writing his book of truths realized, "The subject would become so big in his mind that he himself would be in danger of becoming a grotesque." (6)
This phenomena explains why it took so many different experiences and so many different people are required to adequately prepare George to leave Winesburg for the world around it. A single person may be able to impart a vast amount of knowledge to one disciple, but never can they teach their mentee everything they need to know, because the teacher does not know all the knowledge the student needs, each person's needs are different and unique and therefore a large group, like the inhabitants of Winesburg, Ohio, is required to adequately train a boy from a man. This becomes especially true when a father figure is not present, which makes the maturation of his son to a man, almost impossible without the father's encouragement.
George as he prepares to leave Winesburg Ohio is the embodiment of his environment, every broken heart and crazy night, along with all the stories not told by Anderson represent a culmination of what George has become. George, though vastly changed by his experiences is not the first to take the path through Winesburg, "Tom had seen a thousand George Willards go out of their towns to the city." The path is a well worn one and for good reason, it is the path to a whole and fulfilling life punctuated by a self enlightenment and the privilege to one day be able to pass on the very knowledge and experience to those who will follow. George leaves the gates Winesburg just as many boys will leave their home towns, the sun will rise and illuminate the world ahead. 'Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." -Thoreau
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