Through “Paper Pills, inch Sherwood Anderson illustrates the value appearances enjoy in society when calculating success. The opening paragraphs introduce the 2 main heroes, the doctor fantastic wife, not by identity or even individuality, but mainly by appearance. The narrator recalls the physician while “an old guy with a light beard and huge nose and hands” (Anderson 293). Once again, as if preoccupied with physical characteristics, the narrator after comments, “the knuckles of the doctor’s hands were extraordinarily large. When the hands were closed they will looked like clusters of unpainted wooden golf balls as large as walnuts fastened collectively by metal rods” (294). The mention of the the pure size of the doctor’s nose, hands, and knuckles insinuates physical deformity. The word “unpainted” implies the knuckles are unpolished scars, the hands rendered hard and unyielding by the metaphorical “steel supports. ” The comparison of the doctor’s knuckles to the “gnarled apples” (294) in the orchards of Winesburg, the town in which he lives, suggests that his physical flaws could, just like the substandard pears, lead to repudiation. “On the trees are merely a few gnarled apples the pickers have got rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy’s hands” (294). It appeared an anomaly consequently , to the citizens of Winesburg, when therefore unattractive a guy should protect a better half of such a pleasing presence. “The girl was quiet, high and darker, and to various people she seemed very beautiful. Everyone in Winesburg wondered how come she committed the doctor” (294). The impressions ensemble by the few imply different levels of accomplishment: the girl appears perfect, your doctor less so.
In “Paper Pills, ” the metaphor of the unblemished pears symbolizes excellence. The apples, like the doctor and his wife, have been evaluated on their outward façade rather than the quality of what is within: “The apples had been taken from the trees by pickers. They have been put in barrels and shipped to the cities where they will be eaten in apartments which might be filled with catalogs, magazines, household furniture, and people” (294). The location of the term “people” by the end of the phrase signifies that material property seem of greater importance than the people themselves. The possessions include their achievement, rendering it unneeded to identify the people. As a doctor, the main persona of the account also experienced the potential to lead a successful life in terms of material comforts: “Winesburg had overlooked the old guy, but in Doctor Reefy there was the seeds of a thing very fine” (294). The smoothness only obtains an identity through his role like a doctor. With no it he seems confidential, almost unimportant to world.
Kept “a huge fertile farm” (293) within the death of her daddy, the girl a doctor will get married to also got the potential for a successful life. The agricultural image of “seeds” and fertility encapsulates the idea of potential growth and a successful deliver. The girl’s inheritance appeals to numerous suitors eager to share her prosperity and the accompanying feeling of achievement: “The loss of life of her father and mother plus the rich acres of terrain that experienced come down with her had arranged a coach of suitors on her heels” (295). The phrase “train, ” whether that refers to the automobile or a very long attachment, highlights the quantity of the suitors, and together with the term “on her heels” suggests their dogged pursuit much like hounds in search of a kill. The of starving beasts carries on. The girl dreams that one suitor has “bitten” (295) in her physique, his teeth “dripping” (295). Another suitor, in his instant of passion, does truly bite her leaving “the marks of his teeth (295)” in her shoulder. The violent images emphasizes not only physical shed for the girl but an nearly inhuman urge for food to own her and her wealth.
In contrast, the doctor does not desire the material icons of success. Although he had the economical means to outfit well, a doctor chose to put on the same match for ten years, indifferent to its shabbiness or the unfavorable opinions this drew from others. Aiming to live not really in a metropolis apartment although “alone in the musty office (294), ” even after he inherits his wife’s wealth, Doctor Reefy does not share his society’s avarice for these hallmarks of success. The explanation of his removal of a patient’s the teeth reminds you of the the teeth marks remaining on the girl’s shoulder by the greedy suitor. By taking away the the teeth, Doctor Reefy symbolically desks the insatiable appetite of society to possess and very own. When the doctor and the lady marry, they actually so willingly with legitimate affection and respect for each other. In choosing to marry, the physician becomes her “twisted apple” (294) and she his (her loss in virginity renders her unfinished and therefore imperfect). Each looks past the imperfections of the other and acknowledges these virtues that have gone undiscovered by others: “Only some know the sweet taste of the turned apples” (294). They obtain fulfillment in the beauty of genuine passion.
Rejecting the shallow values of society, the doctor looks somewhere else for a feeling of fulfillment. Prior to his marriage, he had already begun the routine of jotting down ideas on scraps of paper. “The habit had been formed when he sat in his buggy in back of the jaded white equine and gone slowly along country highways. On the papers were drafted thoughts, ends of thoughts, beginnings of thoughts” (294). The description of Doctor Reefy vacationing “slowly” in back of his “jaded” horse to conduct home calls suggests a weariness or disinterest in his task as a physician. He distracts himself by simply writing leftovers of thoughts onto pieces of paper as he travels. The syntax with the line, “on the papers were created thoughts, ends of thoughts, beginnings of thoughts, inches suggests that the ideas confirmed lack very clear formation. If the scraps of paper contact form “hard balls” (294) in his pocket, they literally look like paper supplements. Yet the title of the history works on a deeper level as well. The description “Paper Pills” makes reference not just to the round presence of the scrunched up paper, but refers to that the thoughts themselves act as medicine to benefit others.
Doctor Reefy, dissatisfied with the way of thinking of his world, challenges to form and communicate fresh ideas to boost its well-being. He “worked ceaselessly, increasing something that he himself damaged. Little pyramids of truth he erected and after erecting knocked after that down once again that he might have the facts to set up other pyramids” (294). The triangular shape of a pyramid suggests that the doctor’s seek out an absolute fact symbolizes research online the meaning of life. The fact that this individual keeps wrecking and repairing the pyramids implies either a lack of success or rather which the truth, as well dynamic or perhaps potent, intensifies his disillusionment of the world and its need for change. The transferring of Reefy’s wife facilitates this idea the doctor experienced shared his ideas with her and her unexplained death signifies that the thoughts themselves demolished her. Doctor Reefy’s ideas result in his own seclusion. The narrator describes how “he used to smoke a cob pipe after his wife’s death sitting all day in the empty business office close by a window that was protected in cobwebs. He hardly ever opened the window” (294). The fire from the “cob pipe” symbolizes the doctor’s desire for truth as well as the smoke his swirling thoughts. The cobwebbed window blocks his vision, literally and metaphorically, even though the locked home window separates Reefy from the rest of his globe. Alone and unable to connect, his notion of achievement cannot be noticed.
Anderson presents rival perceptions of success in the text “Paper Pills. inches For the majority, appearances alone signify success or failure. Doctor Reefy’s physical abnormalities consider him less than perfect, irrespective of the benefits that may lie within. Personal assets, by means of material property, indicate achievements for some, such as the residents in the city rentals. Through their very own pursuit of the girl’s riches, the carried away suitors display that the quest for success displays selfishness with the expense of others. The Doctor rejects materialism and seeks his own fulfillment through thought and the quest for truth. Perceiving his society as bad, the doctor will not want to cure someones physical health conditions but heal their misguided beliefs. At the end of his lifestyle, Doctor Reefy stands alone, jailed in a cell, both literally and metaphorically. Trapped with his own irrepressible ideas, he remains not able or unwilling to be component to a world whose ideals he simply cannot share.
