Winesburg, Ohio

Elizabeth Willard, the mother of George, is the protagonist of the stories “Mother” and “Death.” She also owns the New Willard House, which she inherited from her father.

Anderson defines the young Elizabeth by her sense of adventure and a longing to see the world, which endears her to the traveling actors and performers who stay at her father’s hotel. As a young woman, she’s unable to process the actors’ warnings that life in the world outside Winesburg isn’t as exciting as she expects it to be. Anderson later echoes her youthful naivete and willingness to see excitement and potential in the world around her in her son, George.

Anderson defines the older version of Elizabeth by her regret. She believes that something within her died during her youth and hopes that George will be able to revive that part within him. Elizabeth represents the person George could become if he chooses not to leave Winesburg. The unrealized potential of what could have been haunts Elizabeth as she ages, making it urgently important to her that George preserve the part of her that lives in him. As George mourns her death, he repeats the observation of Elizabeth’s early lovers, calling her a “lovely dear,” suggesting that he will explore the world as she could not. Elizabeth refuses the money her father offers to forgo her marriage, so the inheritance George receives from Elizabeth is not material, but spiritual.

Elizabeth experiences an opportunity for solace before she dies in the context of her relationship with Doctor Reefy. Building on his character from “Paper Pills,” Anderson positions Doctor Reefy as the only person who keenly understands what Elizabeth is going through and what she regrets in life. Although Doctor Reefy and George are never able to bond over the death of Elizabeth, Anderson hints at George’s spiritual inheritance when Doctor Reefy makes the same comment that Elizabeth is a “lovely dear.”

Anderson positions Helen White, one of George Willard’s romantic interests, as a mirror in whom George sees only his own desires and hopes reflected back to him. When Helen first appears in the story “The Thinker,” George expresses interest in her, not because he’s attracted to her as an individual, but rather because he believes a relationship with her will help him write a compelling love story. Because Anderson depicts Helen almost exclusively from the perspective of George and the other male characters in the collection, he never invests Helen with her own interiority or personhood.

The wealth and status of Helen’s family allow Anderson to explore social class dynamics in Winesburg, Ohio. As the daughter of a Winesburg banker, Helen’s family is one of the wealthiest households in Winesburg, and Mrs. White hires Tom Foster and his grandmother to work on different parts of their estate. Like George and Seth, Helen’s own mother treats her daughter largely as a possession, taking it upon herself to find a socially and economically advantageous match for Helen.

In “Sophistication,” Helen experiences a moment of freedom and abandon—albeit still depicted through George’s perspective, despite the fact that the story is subtitled “concerning Helen White.” As the narrator observes: “What George felt, [Helen] in her young woman’s way, felt also” (197). The story centers their last attempts to embrace the spirit of youth in which they had come to know each other. While chasing one another down a hill, they simultaneously come to the realization that they have grown too much to be set in their ways in Winesburg. They do not acknowledge that they have matured, but quietly agree that they now want to embody the spirit of sophistication that characterizes adulthood. Even in these final moments between George and Helen, George views his own thoughts and feelings reflected back to him from Helen as though in a mirror, emphasizing the male lens of the character and, by extension, the author.