Winesburg, Ohio is a work of literary modernism. As a short story cycle, the entire work tells a loose story of the coming of age of one character, George Willard, although each story nominally has its own subject—typically one resident or one family in Winesburg—and it tells a self-contained story with its own narrative arc.
Because of Anderson's insistent focus on the psychological turmoil of his characters, there are elements of the collection that fit within the genre of psychological fiction. This was a relatively recent genre in the literary world at the time, emerging in the late 19th century through a series of novels that made the psychological experiences of their characters into the central subject. Because of the gritty nuance and sophistication with which Anderson diligently explores the psyches of his characters, Winesburg could also fall under the category of psychological realism.
As a work of literary modernism, Winesburg also shares much in common with other modernist fiction from the period after the First World War—a general bewilderment and ambivalence about the meaning and purpose of life, a confusion about the persistence of love and passion in the face of inevitable pain and death, and the difficulty of coming of age in a period in which the world has been forced to face such horror.
