Hands

THEMES: Man vs. himself

IMAGERY: boys, berries, animals, fields, hands, white, dreams

CONNECTION TO THEME: The boys in the story represent innocence and carelessness in “Hands”.

TEST: Boys are the story’s connection to innocence, playfulness, and carelessness. Like seen on page 27, “A boy clad in a blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly. The feet of the boy in the road kicked up a cloud of dust that floated across the face of the departing sun.” (page 27). This quote shows the playfulness in the boy, as well as his carelessness. Boys also show the lack of care and concern in the story. This is shown many times, one on page 31, when George Willard says, “There is something wrong, but I don’t want to know what it is. His hands have something to do with his fear of me and everyone.” (page 31). Another example is on page 32, when there is speculation on Wing Biddlebaum’s motives. “He put his arms about me,’ said one. ‘His fingers were always playing in my hair,’ said another.” (page 32). This shows the boys innocence and lack of concern, as they were not alarmed about Wing Biddlebaum’s motives until their fathers (men) had brought it to their attention.

CONNECTION TO THEME: The hands in the story represent change and fear.

TEST: Hands shows the change throughout the story, and the fear within that change. Back in Wing Biddlebaum’s youth, the days where he was Adolph Myers, he was known for being a natural-born schoolteacher. His hands are what changed all of that. His hands that touched the boys, and those words that still remained with him, “Keep your hands to yourself”. From his hands brought change and brought him to Winesburg, where the hands “became his distinguishing feature, his source of his fame.” (page 29). With his hands, he was no longer the man known as the excellent schoolteacher, but as the man with the hands who “had picked as high as a hundred and forty quarts of strawberries in a day.” (page 29). This change also brought fear, which is shown in almost every sentence in the story. The fear was that his story would get out, the fear of his own hands, the hands that are to blame for the story. “The hands alarmed their owner. He wanted to keep them hidden away.” (page 28). Throughout the story, he is trying to hide his hands, like how he is trying to hide himself. As Wing says earlier, the only person he has ever come close to in town is George Willard. George says on page 31, “His hands have something to do with his fear of me and everyone.”

CONNECTION TO THEME: The dreams in the story represent the desire to restart life.

TEST: Every time that dreams are brought into the story, they paint a picture of what Wing Biddlebaum desires. These dreams are often about the way life could restart, or be completely different. “Out of the dream Wing Biddlebaum made a picture for George Willard. In the picture men lived again in a kind of pastoral golden age. Across a green open country came clean-limbed young men, some afoot, some mounted upon horses. In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them.” (page 30). This is symbolic to schoolchildren listening to their teacher, Wing Biddlebaum’s old life as Aldolf Myers.