Winesburg, Ohio

Alice Hindman is 16 years old when she enters a passionate relationship with Winesburg Eagle journalist Ned Currie. Before Alice turns 17, Ned decides to move to Cleveland in hopes of working at a city newspaper. Alice begs Ned to take her with him, promising to work so that she won’t be a burden him or jeopardize his career aspirations. Ned promises to return for her once he secures a job. The night before Ned leaves Winesburg, he and Sarah have sex. Ned comments that they “will have to stick to each other now” (86), which Alice interprets as a promise.

Ned does not get a job in Cleveland as expected, which prompts him to move further out to Chicago. He initially maintains correspondence with Alice but forgets about her once he starts meeting new people in Chicago.

Alice’s father dies as she enters her twenties. Alice starts working as a dry goods store clerk. She remains devoted to Ned despite other suitors’ attempts to court her. She starts saving her earnings, first with the intention of following Ned to Chicago, then with the intention of making enough interest at the bank to support Ned’s aspirations for travel. One day, she goes to the woods on her own and weeps when she realizes she is no longer young.

Alice is 22 years old when her mother marries a carriage painter. She fears that Ned will no longer want her at this age. She starts joining social gatherings to meet other people. One night, the drug store clerk, Will Hurley, offers to walk her home. She accepts but does not invite him into her house, because she does not want to become accustomed to his presence. She merely wants to avoid being alone.

When Alice is 27, she becomes tired of Will’s company and lies restless at home. She no longer wants to be with Ned, but vaguely craves the feeling of being loved. One night, during a storm, Alice gets the idea to run naked outside. Emboldened by the youthful courage of running out in the rain, she decides to find someone to embrace. She finds a man walking home and calls out to him to wait for her. The man is old and has difficulty understanding what she is saying. Embarrassed, Alice conceals herself and crawls back to her house. She blocks the door with her dressing table and struggles to clothe herself. Weeping over her recklessness, she resigns herself to the knowledge that some people are destined to live and die alone.

The story begins with the description of a caged monkey. Most people might react to the monkey’s ugliness with fascination and terror, but the denizens of Winesburg recognize the monkey as the village telegraph operator, Wash Williams. While Wash is known for his ugliness, he possesses a delicate quality in his hands that makes him the preeminent telegraph operator in Ohio despite his youth.

Wash is especially contemptuous of women. He isolates himself from the men of the town but pities them for their associations with women. Some men have a faint respect for Wash, including his superintendent. The superintendent assigns Wash to Winesburg, viewing it as an obscure village that will allow Wash to keep his job without bothering too many people. Before coming to Winesburg, Wash had lived in Dayton with a wife.

George is the only person who knows what happened to Wash to make him so ugly and spiteful. George goes out to court a hat trimmer named Belle Carpenter and comes upon Wash sleeping outside the railroad station. Curious to learn Wash’s story, George visits him the following evening. When George asks if his wife is dead, Wash replies that she is a “living-dead thing,” whose presence is a curse upon the world. He clarifies that his wife had been dead even before they married, which makes him a fool. Wash admits that he is only telling George his story because he wants to warn him about courting Belle.

On the day of his marriage, Wash had been promoted to work as a dispatcher in Columbus. He and his wife bought a house large enough for Wash to keep a vegetable garden. Wash was deeply in love with his wife and showed his reverence for her by kissing her feet. Two years into their marriage, Wash learned that his wife was engaged in three separate affairs, which she carried on in their house. Wash sent her back to Dayton along with his savings and the money from the sale of their house. Wash never asked her why she cheated on him.

Wash soon received a letter from his mother-in-law asking him to come to Dayton. Sitting in their parlor, Wash reflected that his wife’s family members were “respectable people.” This realization provoked thoughts of hatred for his wife’s lovers, as well as the hope that he could reconcile with his wife. Wash’s wife entered the parlor naked, and Wash knew immediately that his mother-in-law had arranged this scenario in the hope of reviving Wash’s passion for his wife. Wash’s wife stood before him in shame. In anger, Wash struck his mother-in-law with a chair. She died soon after from illness.

Seth Richmond lives with his mother, Virginia, in an old house that has lost some of its former glory but has also become more beautiful with time. Seth’s father, Clarence, is killed in a street fight with a newspaper editor who slandered his name. After Clarence’s death, Seth and Virginia learn that he had squandered his wealth in poor investments. Virginia tries to preserve Seth’s positive perception of his late father, asking him not to believe any rumors about him.

As Seth gets older, his mental fortitude becomes increasingly clear to Virginia. He demonstrates considerable resilience against her attempts to reprimand him. When Seth is 16, he runs away with two other boys, who give him mixed whiskey to drink while they ride a freight train car out of town. Virginia prepares to scold him when he returns, but when Seth explains that he was sickened by his companions’ behavior and regretful for leaving at all, she praises him for his good judgment.

Seth visits his friend, George Willard, at the New Willard House. On his way to George’s room, Seth eavesdrops on Tom Willard excitedly discussing politics with two guests. The conversation causes Seth to think about how lonely he is. Many people in Winesburg consider Seth a “deep” person, quietly reflecting on the world around him. Seth disagrees with this assessment, because he has not meticulously designed a plan for his life. He starts wishing he could have something to be excited about the way Tom speaks so passionately about politics.

Seth finds George working on the next issue of the Winesburg Eagle. When George declares that he should fall in love so that he can write a love story, he enlists Seth to help him court Helen White, the banker’s daughter. Seth declines, annoyed, and decides he will go to talk to Helen for his own sake, not George’s.

On his way to see Helen, Seth watches a man named Turk Smollet carefully push a wheelbarrow down a road. Seth reflects that George would have found something to talk to Turk about, feeling despondent that George belongs in the town in a way that Seth doesn’t. He considers leaving for a big city to find work. He shares this aspiration with Helen as soon as she answers the door, then invites her to walk with him.

Seth has always considered the possibility of a relationship with Helen ever since they were children. She used to write him notes, none of which he ever answered although he was charmed by her eloquence. Seth and Helen overhear a man and woman kiss before parting ways. Helen recognizes the woman. Seth reveals George’s intentions to fall in love with Helen so that he can write a story about it. Helen does not react to this.

The more they walk together, the more Seth becomes drawn to the idea of getting into a relationship with Helen. He fantasizes lying beside her under a tree on a summer evening. He tries to convince Helen of the importance of his decision to leave town. Helen agrees that it is necessary for him to strike out on his own to assert his maturity.

Helen asks him about his plans in the city. Distracted by the thought that he does not belong in Winesburg, Seth rants to Helen about his disgust with life in the village. He stresses that he means to work in the city and tells her they will never see each other again. Helen nearly pulls his face to hers, but excuses herself instead, telling him she wants to return home alone. Seth feels perplexed. He resentfully believes that Helen will turn out like everyone else and think him strange. She will become the sort of person who loves a fool like George Willard.

A little girl lives with her widower father, Tom Hard, in an unpainted house. Tom is an agnostic devoted to dismantling the religious idea of God, which prevents him from seeing the manifestation of God in his daughter.

A stranger regularly meets with Tom at the New Willard House. A recovering alcoholic, the stranger visits Winesburg to stay away from his usual drinking spots in Cleveland. The stranger’s boredom in Winesburg causes him to drink more than ever.

One night, the stranger sits with Tom and his little girl, explaining that he doesn’t just have an addiction to alcohol, he also has no one to love. He has faith, however, that he will meet the right woman someday. He remains open to the possibility that the woman could be anyone, including Tom’s little girl. The stranger laments the difficulty of women’s lives and understands that the woman he’s waiting for will have struggled through life. The courage to face her struggles and hardships is what makes her beautiful. The stranger uses the word “Tandy” to define “the quality of being strong to be loved” (115). Kissing the hands of the little girl, the stranger urges her to “[b]e Tandy.”

Later, Tom brings his daughter to sleep at a relative’s house. When he speaks his daughter’s name, his daughter protests, indicating that she wants to go by the name “Tandy Hard.” Tom tries to console her, but the weeping girl insists.