SOURCE: Wentworth, Michael. “‘Your Dear! You Dear! You Lovely Dear!’: Failure and Promise in Sherwood Anderson's ‘Death.’” Midamerica 15 (1988): 27-38.

In the following essay, Wentworth discusses the meaning of personal tics and repeated phrases in Winesburg, Ohio.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Sherwood Anderson's craftsmanship in Winesburg, Ohio is his frequently synecdochic evocation of the personal tragedy or the esential “grotesqueness” of the individual life depicted in terms of a single image, impression, mannerism, nervous tic, part of the body or, on occasion, even a character's name. An especially striking instance of this technique occurs in “Death,” one of the later stories in Winesburg. Ostensibly, the story deals with the death of George Willard's mother Elizabeth, though, within the larger framework of the novel as a whole, Elizabeth's death provides George with the necessary impetus and motivation to leave—and thus escape—a small-town environment that ultimately...