Respectability of Man

In the two weeks it has been since my last post here, our class has continued to make headway with the book we started and that I discussed in my last post, Winesburg Ohio. In the classes since that last post we have examined and vigorously fondled the short stories about the people of the small Ohioan town and the reasons why there lives are nothing but pain, suffering and horribly grotesque truth. Similarly to Wing Biddlebaum in the story Hands, each character featured in the book has their own issue that needs to be worked through, whether it be physical, mental or social. In just about every case, however, the townspeople are unable to come to terms with the issues they wrestle with and instead continue to live their lives ailed by mental and social stigmas that they themselves are unable to solve, or sometimes even understand that they have a problem at all.

One of the stories that I have read since Hands that has stood out to me was the one titled Respectability. Respectability centers around a man named Wash Williams, the telegraph operator for the town of Winesburg. Wash is one of the more ironically named members of the town as he is described as the ugliest, fattest and dirtiest people in Winesburg. It is also well known throughout the town that Wash despises all women, going so far as to describe them as emotionally dead, deceitful creatures. It is not until Wash sits down with George Williard that we understand why he holds this animosity towards woman. When Wash was younger he had a wife that he loved very much, but later found out that she was cheating on him with multiple men while he worked. Disgusted, Wash packed up and left his wife, yet still showed signs that he cared for her by sending her money that he got from selling the house they once lived in. Months later, Wash was invited to his ex-wife's mother's house to try and patch things up. Wash arrived with almost complete intentions of reconciling with her until hes ex was sent into the room completely naked. His mother in law had decided the simplest way to get a man back was simply through sex and thought nothing of manipulating her daughter into doing this. Wash snapped and almost killed his mother in law for the reason that he believed that this act showed that not only was his wife deceitful, but that all woman were deceitful and were not to be trusted or dealt with at all. One of the more interesting parts of this story I thought was in the first paragraph, where Anderson spends time describing a dirty little monkey that lives in a cage in the center of town. Particularly, the comment that described how the women of the town spent time relating the monkey to the various men in their lives. This aspect foreshadows the misogynistic views that Wash would developed after dealing with his wife and mother in laws deception, and  also perhaps reflects how Anderson himself feels towards women in his own life, that they are indeed deceitful or untrustworthy.