Sherwood Anderson(1876-1941)
American author Sherwood Anderson wrote many books during his lifetime—over a dozen novels, several memoirs, and short stories, including his most important literary achievement, Winesburg, Ohio. He grew up in a small Midwestern town and came from a family of eccentrics that always skirted the edges of society.
Evidence suggests that Anderson and several family members presented traits of autism spectrum disorder. His father Irwin was a talker who would corner everyone, strangers and friends alike, and talk at them incessantly. His mother talked very little, and would fall into frustrating “deep silences” (Anderson). The family never reached a position of status in the community and was not highly thought of. The younger brother Earl was a “strange one,” neighbor Dorothy Cox said, “a loner who had no friends.” The other kids in town teased him and called him “Stumblebum” because he didn’t say much, and when he did try to talk he stuttered and had speech problems. An uncontrollable (stimming) nervous tic of rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek turned people away. He spent much of his time hiding underneath the front porch, sometimes with Sherwood sitting nearby.
Sherwood also demonstrated traits of Asperger’s Syndrome. Growing up he was a dreamer, often lost in his own world, absorbed by his own thoughts. When called by name he didn’t answer, even if someone was screaming at him. He withdrew into the world of books, and his eyes glazed over if someone tried to engage him. He confused the other kids with his odd behavior, such as stomping on his brand-new hat for no apparent reason. He once noted that it took a “bracing effort” to make eye contact with others (Walter Rideout). He seems to have had prosopagnosia, the inability to remember people’s faces.
Several of his autistic traits, including poor social skills, communication problems, and feelings of alienation, contributed to the way that he wrote literature. In Winesburg, Ohio he created characters with AS traits that inhabit autistic landscapes filled with symbols of isolation and alienation.
In the short story “Queer,” for example, the character Elmer desperately wants to fit in with the others in town. He is an outsider who yearns for friends and to be a respectable member of the community. But he knows he will always be seen as queer because of his odd ways and the odd ways of his family. Although he is employed in the family store, he can’t tie his shoelaces, can’t converse with customers, and when he is excited “his arms pump up and down” and “his face moves spasmodically” as he “loses control of his tongue.”
Elmer’s family’s outcast stratus is symbolized by their surroundings. Their store is shabby and run down, and is not on the main street, but on an unimportant side street away from the town center. Displayed in the store window are one enormous lump of coal and some ancient brown honeycombs, covered in dust. The family lives upstairs, and no one is interested in what they have to sell.
Elmer’s story develops a theme that runs throughout the book. Anderson’s message to the reader is a sad one: many people in this world are born different and they can’t easily change who they are or how they behave. Since they don’t know how to fix their situation, they are shunned by others and are destined to a life of loneliness and frustration.
Several other stories in Winesburg present characters on the spectrum who are also alienated by their community. The story “Wings,” about the strange character Wing Biddlebaum, is perhaps the most famous.
Like Elmer, Wing would like to have friends, but he is shunned by others because of his odd behavior, which he can’t control. He is unable to speak to neighbors or make friends, an unable to join in with groups of people. Most noticeable is the way he constantly flaps his hands when over-excited or frustrated: “the slender expressive fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets or behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression…” making “more grotesque an already grotesque and elusive individual.” Hand-flapping, of course, is one visible trait of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Wing’s outcast status is also represented symbolically by his home. His small house has a half-decayed veranda, and is perched near a ravine on the outskirts of town. His house is surrounded by tall weeds, and beyond that is the highway. Anderson reminds us “Wing did not think of himself in any way a part of the life of the town where he had lived for twenty years.”
Wing resembles Elmer in his odd presentation, his isolation from others, and his feelings of alienation. Like Elmer, Wing is frustrated by his inability to improve his situation. Like Anderson’s brother Earl, they both have speech problems, tics that drive people crazy, and they cannot find gainful employment. In all three cases, one friendly person—George/Sherwood—feels kindness and compassion for these characters and wants to help them but can’t.
One of Sherwood Anderson’s many gifts was to create a work of literature that challenges the reader’s expectations. His gift was to tell stories about people like his brother Earl. Sherwood had a tender place in his heart for his struggling little brother and seemed to understand his pain as no one else could, perhaps because those struggles were his own, as well.