Hands

“Wing Biddlebaum, forever frightened and beset by a ghostly band of doubts, did not think of himself as in any way a part of the life of the town where he had lived for twenty years.”

This sentence is the first to characterize Wing Biddlebaum’s paranoia about the past catching up with him and thus acts as foreshadowing for the “shadowy doubts” (7) about Adolph Myers that will lead to his dramatic exile. Wing Biddlebaum’s self-imposed exile from the community in Winesburg has a direct relationship with his fear of being “outed.” Despite the length of time between the events of the flashback and the setting of the story, Wing Biddlebaum cannot let go of the past that haunts him.

“In the presence of George Willard, Wing Biddlebaum, who for twenty years had been the town mystery, lost something of his timidity, and his shadowy personality, submerged in a sea of doubts, came forth to look at the world.”

The role of George Willard in the story is to bring Wing Biddlebaum’s story out of the shadows. Wing Biddlebaum immediately changes in his presence; without George Willard, Wing Biddlebaum is unable to walk to his garden gate without nervously retreating to his veranda. With George Willard by his side, Wing Biddlebaum is suddenly able to walk down Main Street. The metaphor of being “submerged in a sea of doubts” calls attention to Wing Biddlebaum’s inability to cope with his past; he is drowning, and George Willard helps keep him afloat.

“The hands alarmed their owner. He wanted to keep them hidden away and looked with amazement at the quiet inexpressive hands of other men who worked beside him in the fields […].”

Wing Biddlebaum’s hands are the central image of the story. His feelings of inadequacy or inherent difference from other men is demonstrated through his “amazement” at their still hands, when he is unable to stop his from moving. Wing Biddlebaum’s quirk is depicted as a natural part of him that causes him shame; as such, his hands become a metaphor for his sexuality, the aspect of himself that he finds most shameful and must hide to protect himself from society.

“The story of Wing Biddlebaum’s hands is worth a book in itself. Sympathetically set forth it would tap many strange, beautiful qualities in obscure men. It is a job for a poet.”

The narrator here leans against the fourth wall by making a direct reference to his own limitations. Although he reports the facts, he is worried that the job is better suited to “a poet.” The difference between these roles—the reporter and the poet—emphasize the story’s theme of Appearance Versus Reality. When the facts are stated sympathetically, they become “relatable.” If put too bluntly or crudely, they will further alienate the subject. George Willard, as narrator in hindsight, must strike a balance between the two.

“‘You are destroying yourself,’ he cried. ‘You have the inclination to be alone and to dream and you are afraid of dreams. You want to be like others in town here. You hear them talk and you try to imitate them.’”

In a stroke of irony, Wing Biddlebaum diagnoses George Willard with the exact problem he faces: He is afraid to dream because he wants to fit in. Wing Biddlebaum’s Alienation and Self-Estrangement from society is here projected onto the listener, George Willard, in whom Wing Biddlebaum sees something of his younger self.

“Again he raised the hands to caress the boy and then a look of horror swept over his face. With a convulsive movement of his body, Wing Biddlebaum sprang to his feet and thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets.”

In an intimate moment, Wing Biddlebaum lets his guard down and touches George Willard like he used to touch his students. His horror at having made the same mistake again induces panic that he will be treated the same way as he was in Pennsylvania again. Because of his traumatic past, Wing Biddlebaum’s reaction to this slip in his carefully constructed persona causes him to overreact to a minor incident.

“He was one of those rare, little understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as a lovable weakness. In their feeling for the boys under their charge such men are not unlike the finer sort of women in their love of men.”

This sentence is often taken as evidence that Wing Biddlebaum is gay or a pederast. However, this is also an example of the narrator taking up the role of the poet and embellishing the story in a sentimental style. It can easily be taken instead as a general statement about how society fears that which is strange, including anti-gay bias, ableism, the stigma of mental illness, and even racism.

“Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the boys and they began also to dream. And then the tragedy. A half-witted boy of the school became enamored of the young master. In his bed at night he imagined unspeakable things and in the morning went forth to tell his dreams as facts.”

The dissonance between the inciting incident—the accusation made by the boy—and the explanation that precedes it is an example of dissonance and irony. Because Wing Biddlebaum teaches the boys to dream and not to doubt, the boy’s dreams are believed as if they were fact. This is ironic in the Greek sense; tragedy is caused by a lack of understanding and communication between the characters.

“Hidden, shadowy doubts that had been in men’s minds concerning Adolph Myers were galvanized into beliefs.”

The prejudice of members of the community is “confirmed” by the allegations, which they assume to be true because they support established biases. The argument that Toxic Masculinity and Prejudice Beget Violence is solidified here, when unfounded and unfair doubts lead to the assumption of guilt.

“They had intended to hang the schoolmaster, but something in his figure, so small, white, and pitiful, touched their hearts and they let him escape. As he ran away into the darkness they repented of their weakness and ran after him.

The juxtaposition between the violence of the mob and the “small, white, and pitiful” Adolph Myers evokes a sympathetic image of the schoolmaster as a victim of prejudice. The men’s momentary indecision is portrayed as their own “weakness,” having had their hearts “touched” by Adolph Myers’s pitiful appearance. Their capacity for empathy in the face of vulnerability is depicted as emasculating, and the men must reassert their dominance through aggression toward Adolph Myers as he flees.

“For twenty years Adolph Myers had lived alone in Winesburg. He was but forty but looked sixty-five.”

This reintroduction to Adolph Myers, who is now Wing Biddlebaum, after the flashback firmly establishes the unreliability of the narrator when it comes to differentiating appearance from reality, because the narrator claimed Wing Biddlebaum was an old man in the opening lines of the story. It also demonstrates the toll that the trauma took on Wing Biddlebaum, whose ostracism had prematurely aged him.

“Although he did not understand what had happened he felt that the hands must be to blame. Again and again the fathers of the boys had talked of the hands. ‘Keep your hands to yourself,’ the saloon keeper had roared.”

Wing Biddlebaum’s strict adherence to this new doctrine, “Keep your hands to yourself,” is based in the fear of being targeted again due to the mysterious behavior of the hands. He dissociates from his hands so that the blame is on them, not him, for what occurred. Either he cannot take responsibility for what happened, or will not.

“Although he still hungered for the presence of the boy, who was the medium through which he expressed his love of man, the hunger became again a part of his loneliness and his waiting.”

This quotation is ambiguous because Wing Biddlebaum’s “hunger” can be interpreted as a desire for platonic, paternal, or romantic love. George Willard is the symbol of Wing Biddlebaum’s connection to humanity as his only friend. Moreover, Wing Biddlebaum’s deep longing for human connection is expressed through a fundamental human need—hunger—emphasizing Wing Biddlebaum’s physical or embodied craving for affection.