SOURCE: Bidney, Martin. “Anderson and the Androgyne: ‘Something More than Man or Woman.’” Studies in Short Fiction 25, no. 3 (summer 1988): 261-73.

In the following essay, Bidney analyzes “the androgynous model of the psyche” as the unifying element to the stories in Winesburg, Ohio.

No previous study of Sherwood Anderson has noted his use of the androgynous model of the psyche in Winesburg, Ohio.¹ The present essay attempts to show that the androgyny myth is in fact the organizing principle of Anderson's complex book, the unifying vision tying together the remarkably varied stories. Anderson strategically places in his work three passages which metaphorically articulate his psychological and artistic ideal. The first of these orienting passages occurs in the prefatory “Book of the Grotesque”; the second is found in the visionary tale “Tandy,” at the exact center of the volume, with ten stories preceding and ten following (the preface excluded); the...