Reist is a Christian clergyman and Professor of Christianity and Literature at Hillsdale College in Michigan. His 1993 essay on the unity of Winesburg, Ohio was included in a recent critical edition of that work. In the following essay, he attempts "to show how Anderson's descriptive power, haunting language, simple dialogue, and carefully arranged series of events all come together to form an artistic and moral whole" in Winesburg, Ohio, with "Sophistication" being "a fundamental part of the novel."

Ever since "Sophistication" appeared in 1919 as part of the ending of Winesburg, Ohio, critics have been unable to account for the continuing hold it has on the literary world. Even though we live in a highly technological, industrialized world, the cluster of stories which make up the novel still provides a telling account of human life trapped in community— the same community in which each townsperson, druggist, grocer...