Winesburg Knockemstiff.pdf - Youngstown State University's ...

From Winesburg, Ohio to Knockemstiff
Senior English has been a survey
of various types of literature that
has challenged your children to
examine the ideas and values of
the text they are reading. This
semester, we will focus on two
Ohio born authors and how
their short story collections were
constructed. We will focus on
the author’s choices as we
examine both authors’
motivations: looking through the
craft and structure on the body
of work. We will look to
understand the author’s choice
of tools such as word choice,
point of view, and how their
own life history might have led
to them to writing these stories.
At the end, your child will be
able to sit down and discuss
their thoughts on both of these
collections.
Figure 1 - 1999
―Winesburg, Ohio‖
edition (Anderson,
1999)
How
Sherwood
Anderson
and Donald
Ray Pollack
got to their
short story
collections is
just as
memorable
as the
stories themselves. For
Anderson, it took the courage to
leave his position as president of
the Anderson Manufacturing Co.
in Elyria, Ohio, to leave his wife
and three children to pursue the
creativity of being a writer. That
day was Nov. 28, 1912.
Figure 2 – Sherwood
Anderson (Mann 1930)
After
publishing
two
novels, he
would
construct
his most
famous
work ―Winesburg, OH (1919)
from 1915 to 1916. The
collection of short stories would
contain ―Hands,‖ the opening
story which Anderson says was
the first ―real‖ story he had ever
written. (McKean, 2006)
Some 60 years, later Donald Ray
Pollack dropped out of high
school at seventeen to work in a
meatpacking plant, and then
spent 32 years employed in a
paper mill in Chillicothe, Ohio. In
the late ’80s, Pollock began
attending Ohio University part
time, and in 1994 he graduated
with a degree in English
literature.
Figure 3 - Donald Ray
Pollock (Etling 2008)
~ 1 ~
When he
turned
45 he
decided
to learn
how to
write. He
began a
story,
eventually included in ―Knockemstiff,‖
called ―Bactine. He
submitted the story to The
Journal, a literary magazine
published by the English
Department at The Ohio State
University, and it made such an
impression on one of the editors,
Michelle Herman, that in 2005
she persuaded him to quit his
job and enroll in the M.F.A.
program there. (Rich, 2007)
―Knockemstiff‖ came out in 2008
and its rawness and originality
attracted a good deal of critical
attention. Writing in The New
York Times Book Review,
Jonathan Miles compared the
book to Sherwood Anderson’s
―Winesburg, Ohio,‖ and said:
―False notes are rare, Pollock’s
voice is fresh and full-throated,
and while these stories travel
negligible distances, even from
one another, the best of them
leave an indelible smear.‖ (Miles,
2008)
Eric Fortune
EDTC 3771
Fall 2011
MWF 9:00 – 9:50 AM
Due: 9/23/11
Despite both collections being
written so far apart, both share a
connection in theme while
making the communities
contained within their title the
central figure that brings the
characters of each together.
―It’s also the central character of
Pollock’s collection of linked
stories, in much the same way its
northern neighbor, Winesburg,
played the lead role in Sherwood
Anderson’s famed story cycle.
Aside from their geographical
proximity and formalistic
architecture, the two books
share something else: a
concentrated focus on the
lonely, the depraved, the
neglected — the ―twisted apples,‖
in Anderson’s phrase, or the
toadstools ―stuck to a rotten log,‖
in Pollock’s — that prompted
Anderson to originally title his
work ―The Book of the
Grotesque.‖
But whereas Anderson tucked
the grotesque beneath the staid
and steady public lives of his
characters, doctors and other
professional types among them,
Pollock’s characters — addicts,
runaways, squatters, rapists,
aspiring molesters, many of them
one signature away from
internment in ―the group home‖
— wear their grotesqueness high
up on their sleeves. If
Winesburg’s social constructs
held the unutterable hungers of
its citizenry in check, however
loosely, in ―Knockemstiff‖ there
are no such
constructs.‖
(Miles, 2008)
Figure 4 – 2009
―Knockemstiff ― edition
(Pollock, 2009)

From Winesburg, Ohio to Knockemstiff
References:
Anderson, S. (Producer). (1999). Winesburg, Ohio. [Web Photo].
http://www.randomhouse.com/book/3683/winesburg-ohio-by-sherwood-anderson
Etling, D. (Photographer). (2008). Donald ray pollock. [Print Photo].
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/23/books/miles-190.jpg
~ 2 ~
Eric Fortune
EDTC 3771
Fall 2011
MWF 9:00 – 9:50 AM
Due: 9/23/11
Fortune, E. (Designer). (2011). State of Ohio. [Web Map]. http://www.clevelandleader.com/files/stateofohio.gif
Mann, H. (Artist). (1930). Line drawing. [Print Drawing].
http://sherwoodandersonfoundation.org/images/mug2_full.jpg
McKean, A. (2006). The Sherwood Anderson Foundation. http://sherwoodandersonfoundation.org/
Miles, J. . (2008, March 23). Winosburg, Ohio. The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Miles2-t.html
Pollock, D. (Producer). (2009). Knockemstiff. [Web Photo].
http://www.randomhouse.com/book/132241/knockemstiff-by-donald-ray-pollock
Rich, A. (2007, June 01). D o n a l d r a y p o l l o c k | official site of donald ray pollock. http://donaldraypollock.com/
Figure 5 – State of Ohio (Fortune, 2011)