Anderson's style in Winesburg, Ohio is distinctly modernist. His prose is direct and succinct, at times to the point of feeling unliterary, and it shows the clear influence of the major chroniclers of rural American life from the 19th century (Mark Twain, especially). Like much of Twain's work, Anderson's writing can feel as though it's been adapted from an oral storytelling tradition. This is particularly true of the series of "Godliness" chapters in the middle of the collection, which take place as a flashback to an earlier generation of Winesburg residents.
Rather than spend time feeding the reader the visual or physical appearance of Winesburg and the world that he builds over the course of the stories in his collection, Anderson delves deep into the interior lives of his characters. What emerges is a study of the psychological and emotional effects of life in an isolated—and isolating—community in the American Midwest. He arms himself with literary devices in order to conflate the emotional turbulence of his characters with the turbulence of the world around them, and he focuses less on strict reportage of the narrative events than he does on the psychological effects on the characters caught up in these events.
