Psychological Literary Analysis on Hands

Psychological Literary Analysis on Hands

In Hands, Anderson treats Wing Biddlebaum's problem very tactfully. Described as fat, frightened, and nervous, the old man seems too feeble to be dangerous. His bald forehead — noticed because his nervous hands fiddle about arranging non-existent hair — suggests his loss of strength and virility. Even the description of the former teacher's caressing of his students sounds quite possibly innocent. The picture of Adolph Myers with the boys of his school is similar to the dream which Wing tries to describe to George, a "pastoral golden age" in which clean-limbed young men gathered about the feet of an old man who talked to them.

Wing has not realized this dream. It was because a half-witted boy imagined forbidden things. Adolph Myers was driven from a Pennsylvania town in the night. He was growled at by the saloon keeper to keep his hands by himself. Here, Anderson criticizes how cruel the people are as it hounds anything intelligible for them.

The former teacher was estranged and terrified. Wing’s life turned into a nightmare. The fact that George Willard never comes, that in fact nothing really happens in the story, underpins our cognizance of the old man's downfall and disillusion. His life no longer has any climaxes. His is still all the while and doesn’t unfold.

Hands is about – yes – hands of Wing Biddlebaum "an imprisoned bird," an image reinforced not only by his nickname but by the reader's last glance of him, picking up bread crumbs from the floor. As in so many of the Winesburg stories, its setting is night, suggesting the dark misery of the lives of Anderson's characters. As Wing kneels on the floor, he is described as being "like a priest engaged in some service of his church." This image, plus the old man's persecution by society and his desire to show his love for others by the laying on of his hands, may make Wing seem to be a Christ-like figure.

Although "Hands" is the story of Wing Biddlebaum, we are also introduced to George Willard, the young reporter who appears in many of the Winesburg tales. Like Wing, George has creative impulses, but at this point, as Wing tells George, "You are afraid of dreams. You want to be like others in town here . . . You must begin to dream . . . You must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices." For the time being, however, George is afraid to forget the voices, to be different. He has wondered, for example, about Wing's secret, has realized that there is something wrong in Wing's life, but has decided, "I don't want to know what it is." As the book develops, George will get more involved with other people, will begin to get below the surface of life, and will decide to be different and flee Winesburg so that he can become a writer.

Another change that also seems effective occurs in the sentence, "He raised the hands [changed from "his hands"] to caress the boy." This change makes Wing's hands a personification with a will of their own and thus conveys the helplessness of a man controlled by his compulsions. In this helplessness lies the power of the story; "Hands" haunts us because we recognize in Wing Biddlebaum our own helplessness and we see how thoughtlessly society can persecute what it does not understand. Perhaps we see ourselves in both Wing and in the society that has ruined his life.

Source: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/w/winesburg-ohio/summary-and-analysis/hands