ged, and they beat Wing without mercy. He barely escaped, only to immerse himself into a voluntary exile that is the cause of his chronic loneliness and the magnification of his internal suffering. “For twenty years [Wing] lived alone in Winesburg, … but forty [he] looked sixty-five.” (Hands 2) The reclusive Wing is pre-maturely aged, perhaps because his features died along with his pride, passion, and vitality. He chose Winesburg only because he had an aunt there, but he never became a participant of its society. “Wing Biddlebaum, forever frightened and beset by a ghostly band of doubts…” does not associate himself with the town in any way. (Hands 1) He ostracizes himself in order to conceal his hands, which he blames for the brutal beating he received. However, in his efforts to suppress his anatomy, he inhibits the fundamental nature of his self-expression. At the end of the story, this longing is signified by hunger as “he began to pick up the crumbs, carrying them into his mouth one by one with unbelievable rapidity.” (Hands 2) His estrangement from the world, an attempt to abolish his creativity, only serves to swell his need for that very thing.Wing’s tremulous, reclusive life is a direct result of his deep compassion, which was mistaken for homosexuality. It is important to recognize that “Hands” and the rest of the Winesburg compilation is “far from the pessimistic or destructive or morbidly sexual work it was once attacked for being. Instead it is a work of love, an attempt to break down the walls that divide one person from another.” (14) Each of the grotesques depicted follow a unanimous theme of being gifted, creative dreamers. Unable to satisfy their hunger for life and expression, their desolation is multiplied. The most critical theme found throughout Anderson’s stories is the clear reflection of real life. The problems fac...
