In my Formal Literary Analysis Essay, I was considering the idea of writing the paper on the fact that Anderson makes an allusion to Greek mythology through his characters, first starting with George Williard.  After much research I concluded with four different heroes for George:

11)      Orpheus

22)      Jason

33)      Perseus

44)      Achilles

But the only issue I had with these five heroes was this: none of them fully represent George Williard. Actually, as I refreshed my memory, I realized they all symbolized a different part of George Williard. And in a way, they all make him up as a whole. Orpheus (one of my personal favorites), for example, spent the majority of his life falling in love with women (while at the same time going on quests and other adventures that also made him a legend), but once the true love of his life, Eurydice, was killed (by a serpent snake, to be matter-of-fact) he was determined to rescue her from the Underworld. Thankfully, he was a music prodigy because he was the son of Apollo (the God of Music), and Hades believed his music was so powerful that Hades decided that he could bring Eurydice back, but only if he does not look back on his way back toward the Upper World. Sadly, he looked back just as he rose to the surface and Eurydice was taken away. After that, people shunned him and threw him into bushes while throwing rocks and sticks at him.

How could this ever connect back to George Williard? Though George was very determined to leave, he also yearned for a woman, just as Orpheus had. Though there was no specific “woman” until the end when he was officially with Helen, he believed that a woman would be his key to leave Winesburg. Sadly, these women kept slipping away from him, or did not seem like the right one, so he took the hard road (like Orpheus had). Once he believed he could actually win Belle Carpenter’s heart, it was ripped away from him. He ended, just like Orpheus, to be thrown into the bushes, physically abused, and then left with no love.

The second hero I saw in George Williard was Jason, a prince who was determined to get his father's kingdom back after it was taken over. He was most famous for his voyage of the Golden Fleece, which was what he thought would be the "key" to get his father's kingdom back. Jason, like George Williard, had to go through many tasks to get to the Golden Fleece (or whatever it was that was believed would get him out of his hopeless state), like dealing with women who were not the right women to accompany him for his destiny, sacrificing teammates (or emotional parts of himself) for the greater good, and being forced to prove the people around him wrong.

Perseus, another noble hero, was a son of a mortal woman and Zeus. A mortal woman had been told a prophecy that her son would kill her parents, so she was forced to be locked into a dark tower with only a small window for her to look out of. When Zeus arrived, she was desperate and lonely, so he gave her a child. (The mother sounds an awful lot like Elizabeth) Perseus, after getting out of the tower, was forced into the sea and swept away after her parents discovered the baby, feeling alone and not meant to be where he landed. Throughout the next few years, he was tormented for not being “manly enough”, and took up a quest from a “tall” woman (Athena). After fighting many distorted creatures, like Gorgons and Medusa, he finally ended with the love of his life, Andromeda.

 Lastly, Achilles shares a lot of George’s story. He was destined to leave his home for Troy (or, in other words, where his “fate” was, like George’s fate to be a journalist).  His mother feared that he would die there though, so she dipped him into the River of Styx to make him impossible to kill. The majority of his body was invincible, but because he was still mortal he had one weak spot in the side of his ankle (the one part that made him human; love, vulnerability, sadness, etc) which would kill him if he was pierced. Throughout his journey, he was forced to kill through many people to get to live his life. These people were often times thresholds, just as George had many thresholds that he had to “kill” to get out of Winesburg.