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Helen White
A strange, socially-isolated field laborer whose only friend is George Willard. Wing gets his name from his uncontrollably restless hands that move incessantly like the wings of a caged bird. A former schoolteacher in Pennsylvania, Wing is full of boundless ideas and would often deliver impassioned lectures to his male students while touching their heads and shoulders. As a result, Wing was accused of molestation, run out of town, and fled to Winesburg under a new name. Wing’s soiled reputation and hyperactive hands create a deep sense of shame that alienates him from the rest of the town.
Wing Biddlebaum / Adolph Meyers Quotes in Winesburg, Ohio
The Winesburg, Ohio quotes below are all either spoken by Wing Biddlebaum / Adolph Meyers or refer to Wing Biddlebaum / Adolph Meyers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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1. The Book of the Grotesque Quotes
It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.
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Winesburg, Ohio begins with a vignette about an elderly writer in town who has a prophetic, dreamlike vision of disturbing figures. This occurrence inspires him to write a book entitled “The Book of the Grotesque” in which he explores the nature of truth and its impact on the human soul. The writer concludes that the principles humanity considers to be deep truths are entirely man-made, and that they are omnipresent and beautiful. He cautions, however, that people are made grotesque and morally corrupted when they become possessed by any one truth. This piece of wisdom serves as a central theme Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibu
2. Hands Quotes
In Winesburg the hands had attracted attention merely because of their activity. With them Wing Biddlebaum had picked as high as a hundred and forty quarts of strawberries in a day. They became his distinguishing feature, the source of his fame. And they made more grotesque an already grotesque and elusive individuality.
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Wing Biddlebaum is one of many characters throughout the novel who is socially isolated from the Winesburg community. Wing, who was driven out of his old life in Pennsylvania after being accused of molestation, has a disturbing habit of relentlessly moving his hands. This compulsive tendency is an outward manifestation of the internal turmoil he experiences and further compounds the shame he feels toward the loss of his former reputation as a schoolteacher. Wing often engages in philosophical diatribes, and these rants are when he tends to lose control of his hands and thus appear grotesque (that is, both off-putting Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Un
“You must try to forget all you have learned,” said the old man. “You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices.”
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Wing Biddlebaum is socially ostracized from most of the townspeople in Winesburg, his only friend being George Willard, the novel’s young protagonist. George, a reporter for the local Winesburg Eagle newspaper, is an adolescent boy who is sought out by Wing (and many of the other older men in town) as a confidante. Wing delivers a diatribe to George about the boy’s future and the nature of life, much like the impassioned lectures he used to give as a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania before he was accused of molestation and run out of town. Despite his troubled past and questionable judgment, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium
In the dense blotch of light beneath the table, the kneeling figure looked like a priest engaged in some service of his church. The nervous expressive fingers, flashing in and out of the light, might well have been mistaken for the fingers of the devotee going swiftly through decade after decade of his rosary.
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When Wing Biddlebaum sees a group of berry pickers laughing with one another as they return from the field, he experiences a deep sense of loneliness. Longing for the company of his only friend George Willard, Wing defeatedly returns to his house and has a meal of honey spread on slices of bread. After finishing, he kneels down on the kitchen floor to eat the crumbs he left behind “with unbelievable rapidity.” The disturbing, pathetic nature of this scene further adds to Wing’s embodiment of the grotesque. By drawing a comparison between the image of Wing eating crumbs off the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim
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Wing Biddlebaum / Adolph Meyers Character Timeline in Winesburg, Ohio
The timeline below shows where the character Wing Biddlebaum / Adolph Meyers appears in Winesburg, Ohio. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
2. Hands
Wing Biddlebaum paces on the porch of his dilapidated house, watching a wagon of his fellow...
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Wing, who is haunted by self-doubt, does not feel like he fits in with the other...
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The narrator states that Wing’s story is “a story of hands.” Their constant erratic movement is similar to that of...
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When Wing arrived in Winesburg, his hands attracted attention because their constant motion allowed him to pick...
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George had almost reached the point of asking Wing about his hands once before. The two were walking in the fields when Wing began...
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The narrator shifts to tell the story of Wing’s hands. Twenty years ago, Wing had been a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania where he was known...
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Twenty years later, in the present, Wing is still living in Winesburg. After pacing on his porch, Wing goes back into the...
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