Self-Repression In Sherwood Anderson's Hands

To this day, thousands of people are estimated to be behind bars as punishment for a crime that they did not commit. Many of these prisoners are young adults, who then have the prime years of their lives taken away from them simply due to a misunderstanding. On a similar note, Sherwood Anderson’s short story “Hands,” focuses into the life of Wing Biddlebaum, a timid and fearful man who has been forcefully driven from his hometown, where he had been a schoolmaster, because his behavior was falsely interpreted as inappropriate. He then escapes to Winesburg to live a quiet life as a berry picker. The descriptions of Wing’s persona and his dark past convey how a traumatic experience can lead to self-repression and how alienation can cause him to …show more content…
Whenever Wing talks, his hands are described to be “the piston rods of his machinery of expression” (8). By comparing Wing’s hands to piston rods, which often move on a structure and is integral to its design, Anderson emphasizes the importance of the hands as a symbol to convey Wing’s emotions through their movement. The word “machinery,” which depicts something that functions continuously, suggests that Wing unceasingly expresses with his hands. However, while talking to George, Wing “[closes] his fists and [beats] with them upon a table,” feeling at peace only when his hands are secured (8). His actions hide his hands and prevent them from moving freely, which demonstrates that he is trying to restrain his inner feelings. By only being able to relax once the hands that convey his emotions are …show more content…
Once, while talking to George “as one lost in a dream,” Wing unintentionally lets his hands free to show his emotions (9). His hands naturally become active as he thinks of his hopes and inspirations, suggesting that the hands convey the passions that he wants in his life. Yet, by suppressing his hands in order to isolate himself, Wing is causing his dreams to vanish leaving nothing to look towards for the future. Furthermore, Wing’s story is mostly told about the past, with few details of the present time. For instance, Wing is described in the present to be walking “up and down the veranda,” multiple times, a repetitive and mundane task that does not amount to anything (7). Repeating the action in the story also emphasizes the tediousness in Wing’s current life. The focus on the past and the dull description of the present suggest that in his attempt to escape and isolate himself, Wing loses his lively inner character and is reduced to nothingness. After escaping to Winesburg, Wing only uses his hands to work and is famous for picking “as high as a hundred and forty quarts of strawberries in a day” (8). His hands have before been used expressively while interacting with others, but they are now solely used to do manual labor without the company of others. The loss of emotional use for Wing’s hands conveys that through the transformation to alienate himself, Wing loses the