Sophistication Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 34 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Sophistication.

Sophistication Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 34 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Sophistication.
This section contains 413 words
(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Sophistication Study Guide

Rideout has written a biography of Sherwood Anderson, scheduled for publication in 1998. In the following excerpt, he offers his interpretation of "Sophistication" as the climax of George's coming of age.

Where "An Awakening" records a defeat, "Sophistication" records in all ways a triumph. Though Anderson presents the moment in essay rather than dramatic form, there comes to George, as to "every boy," a flash of insight when "he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name." But this time "the voices outside himself" do not speak of the possibilities of universal order, nor do they speak of guilt. Instead they "whisper a message concerning the limitations of life," the brief light of human existence between two darks. The insight emphasizes the unity of all human beings in their necessary submission to death and their need for communication one with another. It is...

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This section contains 413 words
(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Sophistication Study Guide
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Sophistication from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.