SOURCE: Atlas, Marilyn Judith. “Sherwood Anderson and the Women of Winesburg.” In Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson, edited by David D. Anderson, pp. 250-65. New York: G. K. Hall and Company, 1981.

In the following essay, Atlas discusses Anderson's relationships with the women in his life and the effect they had on his characterizations of women in Winesburg, Ohio.

Winesburg, Ohio has been studied biographically, geographically, historically, thematically, structurally, mystically, and mythically.¹ However one enters the novel, attention is given to its characters. Edwin Fussel and Carlos Baker have seen the novel within the tradition of the Bildungsroman and have found George Willard's journey toward self and subsequent escape from Winesburg to be its center;² David D. Anderson has demonstrated that George Willard's role is secondary to the people about whom each story centers and that one must understand the individual characters and their human experience in order to...