Winesburg, Ohio

Throughout the book, several characters feel compelled to go on adventures that signal a break from the regular rhythm of their lives. Sherwood Anderson positions this recurring motif of adventure as an attempt to break away from The Loneliness of One’s Inner World and assert Individuality in a Small Town.

In “Mother,” Elizabeth Willard goes on an adventure down the hallway to spy on her son George in an attempt to mitigate the influence of George’s father on his life. Anderson frames this adventure as Elizabeth’s attempt to exert her own influence on George, saving him from her own mistakes. In both this story and “Death,” Elizabeth laments the loss of her adventurous spirit, which she hopes to preserve in George.

In “Nobody Knows,” George goes on an adventure of his own, sneaking to Louise Trunnion’s house to answer the romantic note she sends him earlier in the day. Their tryst results in his first sexual encounter, underscoring George’s naivete and highlighting The Tension Between Youth and Experience, a central theme of Anderson’s collection. Louise Bentley has a similar adventure when she decides to court John Hardy’s favor, offering herself to John so that she can access the joyful social circles from which she feels excluded, but John interprets her message at face value and thinks that she only wants to engage with him romantically.

The most significant adventure happens in the story aptly titled “Adventure,” in which Alice Hindman gets the impulse to run naked in the rain in a last attempt to revive her youthful spirit. Alice’s adventure represents an attempt to grapple with her complicated emotions about growing old and remaining alone. The encounter with the old man provokes her to return home in shame, where she resigns herself to her loneliness.