SOURCE: “Some Artistic Dimensions of Sherwood Anderson's ‘Death in the Woods’” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring, 1967, pp. 252–59.

In the following essay, Joselyn discusses the various transformations that occur in “Death in the Woods,” and argues that the story is unified through the interweaving of these metamorphoses.

Although Sherwood Anderson's “Death in the Woods” is widely regarded as the author's masterpiece and has been closely studied by at least two critics, its depths have not yet been plumbed. It is not the claim of this short paper to do so, either, but rather to indicate some dimensions of the story that so far have scarcely been identified but which in fact have both structural and thematic importance. An appreciative reader of the modern short narrative marvels at Anderson's skill in this story—the “circling,” resonating effect created by the several retellings of the events, the deft...