Death in the Woods - Research Paper Example

Death in the Woods Death in the Woods Written by Sherwood Anderson, ‘Death in the Woods’ is a short story written from the point of view of thenarrator. He has tried to retell a series of events that took place when he was a child, with a view to explaining the meaning of death as it occurred to him at that point. This story is considered to be one of Anderson’s most distinctive and distinguished works because he has tried to move away from the norms of storytelling and depict the picture of death in a mysterious and deceptive manner, equipped with simplicity. The book consists of a number of short stories where the narrator has made an attempt to describe the death of an old woman who dies on her way home from the village, and how soon after, how body becomes transformed mystically. The story is set in the nineteenth century in the deep dark areas of Illinois. This paper helps to provide an analysis on the same. Mrs Grimes is the main protagonist around whom the story has been woven. The narrator has presented himself as a very unreliable source upon which no one has a choice but to bank upon in order to hear the entire story of how Mrs Grimes died. She lived on the edge of society and made a livelihood by selling eggs. She and her husband did not have much standing in society as they were frowned down upon because her husband was called a horse thief. People were under the impression that they did not belong to a good family and thus did not deserve to be a part of the social circle. Mrs Grimes is thus ignored by the people around her, on a daily basis and she is quite used to the fact as well. Despite being quite an old woman, the narrator has described her physique as a rather appealing one. “A thing so complete has its own beauty.” (Anderson, S) She grew up as an indentured servant in the house of a German man. He treated her badly and made her provide him with sexual favours, as it has been suggested within the book, and this put her in the bad books of his wife, who beat Mrs Grimes up cruelly. However, she was rescued by Jake who helped her escape and married her. However, the two gave birth to a son and daughter – the daughter died during childhood and the son grew up to be like his father, and they both abused Mrs Grimes and gave her the worst time. They treated her much like the German master did and thus the narrator stated that for Mrs Grimes, life had always been rough, brutish and the worst form experienced by her and thus she did not know a different side to life at all. As she grew up, she began to take care of animals and for her, her main objective in life was to take care of those animals and feed them because they were the only beings she knew that responded back to her in a friendly manner and accepted her for who she was. The narrator states that on her last day, Mrs Grimes went into the town in order to exchange her eggs for some supplies. Since the weather was cold and snowy, the butcher was nice to her, and felt pity and provided her with some extra liver. Soon as she leaves, she takes a short cut in order to walk back home through the woods. She soon finds a secluded place to sit in, so she sits down and in a few moments, she dies. Mrs Grimes’ dogs circle behind her trying to figure out what happened, and as they sense some disturbance, they bark and howl. However, they soon settle down and devour the food that she had bought for the family. Her body is discovered by a hunter who tells people in the town about her dead body. Upon hearing the story, some people as well as the narrator go into the woods in order to examine the body and understand the cause of her death. The reason that he retells her story again and again is not only to help the people around him understand it, but also to help himself in finding a reasonable explanation for the sudden cause of her death. As per a number of critics, the story is actually a perspective of the narrator’s growth and development throughout the years. The corpse of the old woman triggers the narrator’s sensory reactions and he perceives the body of the woman to be an old white and lovely marble like structure that looks like the shell of a human being. The narrator always displayed dissatisfaction at the way that his brother told the story of the woman’s death to people and thus years later, after attaining maturity and having the woman’s image haunt him throughout the years, he is able to come out with an explanation regarding her death. The story contains a number of mystical aspects. The depiction of circles throughout the course of the story helps to portray a spiritual side to the story. Throughout the story, the woman has been displayed a hard working woman, with her life revolving around the lives of the other people around her. She has never been said to rest or lie down and have someone else work for her, for a change. However, when she walks into the woods, her entire way of life slows down and provides a different side to her as she lies down to rest. When her dogs begin to run around her sleeping form, the story meets its climax or crux because the narrator says that the dogs running around her in circles depict a sort of death ritual or ceremony, stating once and for all that she had indeed passed away. As the narrator makes his best attempts to retell the story several years later, the entire tale is again told in a circular manner or motion as he moves back and forth from the events that took place in the woman’s life. A significant amount of importance has been provided to silence as well during the course of the story. This silence helps to provide more mystery to the events that circulate around the life of the old woman. “She had got the habit of silence anyway—that was fixed.” (Anderson, S) This quote helps to explain how the woman used silence as her shield in order to ward people off and keep them at bay. Verbal communication had become painful for her because not many people listened to her and all she wanted was to disengage her own self from the painful trauma that was made to suffer through every day of her life. The emphasis on silence has also been given by the narrator because of the way the old woman died, in a very silent manner, without hassle and dialogue. “Death in the Woods” is a first person account of an incident which eschews the usual attempt in fiction of witnessing narrators to relay the truth objectively. The narrator apprehended a boyish chimera, something which is not objectively witnessed; yet this epiphany contains an importance equal to that of the inferences, hearsay, and parallel perspectives which also form the story.” Thus, the story helps the narrator to grow up and through his eyes, the mystics that surrounded the death of the woman. The entire tale, thus, has a very naturalist feel to it as Mrs Grimes is reduced to the basic and most minimalist aspects of living life; she feeds her animals and takes care of the family. Thus, she does not get to experience any exciting events during her lifetime, and this leads the author to believe that the only mystical thing that took place was the dogs circling around her dead body. He imagines the scene to be extremely surreal because he thinks of his story as a realist version by capturing the thoughts of each and every object and character involved within the foremost situations that occurred. It has also been compared to the macabre works of Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck as the author provides an entirely different twist to the story by adding the element of mystery in the form of a mystical aura that shapes itself around the body of Mrs Grimes. In conclusion, the story contains an important epiphany by illuminating the monotonous and dull character of Mrs Grimes as the plot-less story of the woman weaves its way around the imagination of the narrator in a manner that he is never able to forget the incident that took place. His eagerness to grow and develop becomes a pretext for the telling of the entire story as the readers as made aware of the fact that if not for his ability to understand life and death, the woman would never have gained so much appeal posthumously through the story as she did. References Anderson, S. (1986). Death in the Woods. New York City: Shoreline Books. Read More