What are some important quotes and explanations from Winesburg Ohio? What is the theme of the story? Is there any connection between this novel...

Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of
loosely connected stories whose central theme is the condition of alienation and
isolation which characterizes the human experience. Sherwood Anderson calls his
characters "grotesques." Grotesques are individuals who become fixated on any given
truth such that he is unable to see beyond it; in his obsession with the truth he has
chosen, the individual is rendered incapable of establishing connections with others,
and is doomed to live separated from them, isolated and alone. Anderson looks upon his
grotesques with pity and with love. He says,

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"The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were
amusing, some almost beautiful..." ("The Book of the
Grotesque").

When an
individual reaches maturity, he becomes aware of his own insignificance, and that
realization is difficult to accept. In the chapter entitled "Sophistication," George
Willard understands

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"that in spite of all the stout talk of his
fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing
destined like corn to wilt in the
sun."

With this realization
comes the longing to transcend the condition of aloneness that characterizes mankind for
even just one moment, through true communion with
another;

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"With all his heart (George) wants to come close
to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of
another...he wants, most of all,
understanding."

The
satisfaction of this longing is difficult to achieve, and must, by nature, be fleeting.
When it is finally reached, there is a sense of relief, and the quiet acknowledgement
that

"I have
come to this lonely place and here is this other...Man or boy, woman or girl, they had
for a moment taken hold of the thing that makes the mature life of men and women in the
modern world possible."

There
is a strong connection between Winesburg, Ohio and J. D. Salinger's
Catcher in the Rye. The central character in Catcher in
the Rye, Holden Caufield, is in the throes of the very condition of
alienation described by Anderson in Winesburg, Ohio. Holden is
fixated on the truth that people are phony, and his obsession with this idea renders
him incapable of establishing meaningful relationships with others. Alone in his
grotesqueness, Holden is unable to function at school academically and socially, and as
he wanders through New York City, he teeters on the brink of isolation-induced
madness.