Winesburg, Ohio

Tom Foster moves to Winesburg as a young man, accompanying his grandmother who wants to return to her hometown after many years of travel. When they arrive in Winesburg, Tom’s grandmother no longer recognizes it. They get jobs working for the Whites. Tom serves as a stable boy in the barn.

Tom is curious and gentle by nature, which endears many people to him. When he still lived in Cincinnati, he stole a small amount from a store cash register, which his grandmother settled on his behalf. Tom admits that he was ashamed of his actions, but in a way that taught him something new about the world. While working as a messenger in Cincinnati, Tom spent a lot of time among sex workers, who shaped his thoughts and feelings about women as he grew older.

Tom is a terrible stable boy, which earns the ire of Mrs. White. After he is fired, he rents a room and lives apart from his grandmother who still visits him regularly. Tom takes on a series of odd jobs at different households and farms. He comes to appreciate the little joys in life, such as the smell of coffee beans roasting in the grocery.

Motivated by a powerful crush on Helen White, Tom goes out into town one night. He buys a bottle of whiskey, gets drunk, and ends up splayed on a patch of grass, thinking about his life in Winesburg thus far. He continues walking and ends up sick. George finds him and helps him to recover. Tom claims that he and Helen have had a romantic affair, which confounds George. George tries to get Tom to stop slandering Helen’s name.

When Tom recovers, he declares that getting drunk taught him to think with greater clarity. Unsure what Tom means, George still feels angry at him for speaking falsehoods about Helen. Tom goes on to say that following the joy that Helen brought him, he got drunk to “suffer […] because every one suffers and does wrong” (180). He wishes he could drink without hurting anyone else. He compares getting drunk to sex, emphasizing the way alcohol makes him suffer and feel strange about himself. He explains that he got drunk out of curiosity.

Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard become friends when George is still a boy. Elizabeth initially comes to consult the doctor about her health but starts exchanging details of her life with him. When his wife is dying, Doctor Reefy tells her that his friendship with Elizabeth is like finding someone who prays to the same gods as he does.

Elizabeth and Doctor Reefy talk about the people in Winesburg, sometimes waxing poetic and philosophical about life in the town. Elizabeth feels restored after each of their conversations. On one occasion, she returns to the hotel thinking about the doctor’s assertion that love must remain indefinite.

Growing up, Elizabeth always felt distant from her parents since her mother had died when she was young and her father was preoccupied with work. As a young woman, Elizabeth felt emboldened to live adventurously. Despite her many love affairs, she never felt like she got to experience a real adventure. She initially presumed that her marriage to Tom Willard would not only satisfy this desire but give her the satisfaction of going against her father’s wishes. Shortly before he died, Elizabeth’s father offered her $800 to forego the marriage. He made her promise not to tell Tom about the money if she married him anyway.

Elizabeth tells Doctor Reefy that her desire for adventure wasn’t satisfied by her marriage. She had acted out of a desire to get married, rather than a careful consideration of whether Tom was a good match for her. She once considered telling Tom about the money her father left her, but then she realized she did not like Tom enough to share it with him. Instead, she rode out on a pony in the middle of a storm, intending to run away to a preferable life.

Elizabeth weeps before Doctor Reefy. The doctor embraces Elizabeth and calls her a “lovely dear,” echoing one of the lovers Elizabeth had taken in her youth. Their passionate moment is interrupted by the arrival of a store clerk. Elizabeth leaves shortly after, shaken by the frustration of her intimate moment with Doctor Reefy, not knowing this will be the last time they see each other before she dies. On the eve of her death, Elizabeth tries but fails to tell George about her secret money.

George is 18 years old when Elizabeth dies. Having had very few experiences of death before, George feels sick with grief and goes for a walk. He feels frustrated that he must postpone his next meeting with Helen White. When George gets home, he finds Doctor Reefy sitting with his mother’s body. The doctor considers acknowledging the boy, but feels too self-conscious and runs off.

George resolves to leave Winesburg and work as a city journalist. He thinks again of Helen and feels so ashamed at the thought that he won’t be able to kiss her for some time that he begins weeping beside his mother’s body. George feels compelled to look at his mother’s corpse, but exits the room before he can do so. He tries to convince himself that the dead body is not his mother, but someone else. He finally admits the truth when he cries with Aunt Elizabeth Swift, who has come to look after the body. He calls his mother “[t]he dear, the dear, oh the lovely dear” (191).

Elizabeth’s money remains hidden in the wall behind her bed. She had hinted its location to Tom, ever hopeful that she could fulfill her aspiration for release. The narrator notes she only ever experienced release twice—when Doctor Reefy held her and when she died.

Held in the fall, the Winesburg County Fair is well attended by people from town and country alike. George Willard has grown into a man and remains resolved to pursue a new life in the city. His last days in Winesburg are filled with a sense of nostalgia and exhaustion. He becomes conscious of his memories and the limited possibilities of the future. George believes he has been visited by “[t]he sadness of sophistication” (193). He comes to believe that the only thing that will assuage his uncertainty is companionship and understanding.

Still enamored with Helen White, who now attends college in Cleveland, George seeks her company when she returns to town for the fair. Helen wants to see George as well and get away from her visiting college instructor, who is a guest of her mother’s. Both Helen and George look idealistically upon an encounter they had in the summer, during which they went for a walk and George explained his aspirations. He encouraged Helen to be beautiful and distinguish herself from other women.

George becomes frustrated that Helen has not yet left her visitor to be with him. He decides to visit Helen at her house. Helen is annoyed by her instructor’s conversation with her mother, who asserts that no one in Winesburg is a suitable match for Helen. Helen leaves and goes looking for George. They find each other and run off toward the county fairgrounds.

George and Helen come upon the grandstand, which has been left abandoned after the end of the fair. Helen’s presence allays George’s sadness and loneliness. They briefly kiss, walking into a wild cornfield. When they reach a hilltop, they kiss again, their mutual respect turning excited and animalistic. They start rolling and running down the hill. When they reach the bottom, they get back on their feet and continue walking. Fully satisfied, they no longer feel the need to return to their youth.

One early April morning, George Willard gets up early to prepare for his departure from Winesburg. He walks along Trunion Pike to behold the vastness of the open fields one last time. Store clerks on Main Street ask George how it feels to leave Winesburg.

Tom Willard brings George to the station to take the train that runs through the cities of Cleveland, Chicago, and New York. People come to wish George well. Helen White arrives late and fails to catch George boarding his train. The trainmaster, Tom Little, punches George’s ticket, having seen many like him go this way before. George makes the acquaintance of a man who invites him to go fishing at Sandusky Bay.

George counts his money and thinks about his father’s advice to be sharp and not to seem “green” to others. Before the train leaves Winesburg, George thinks not about the big moments in his life, but the small details of life in the village. In his reverie, he falls asleep. When he opens his eyes, the train has already departed the station and Winesburg has disappeared from his life.