short-story ”I want to know why” by Sherwood Anderson
...the autodiegetic narrator. The young boy as the narrator is the main character in the story. This short-story is written in a way that reveals the insight of a boy in a very deep way. By adressing the reader in a direct manner the young boy tells the story about his unforgetable experience, his feelings and a huge disappointment. It is a very complex short-story dealing with several topics like growing up, sexuality, racism and horses. In general it is very difficult to identify a central topic. The title “I want to know why” expresses the boy’s confusion about the shocking growing-experience. In the course of the story it is noticable that the title is expressed in a slightly different way: “I don’t know why” (p.6, l.15; p.16, l.20). Only the final sentence of the story relates exactly to the title. Not to know why is not as strong as the need to know why, expressed in the title and the closing sentence. This fact indicates the change that is happening inside of him. In the beginning he doesn’t have the strong desire to understand certain things and subconciously he probably doesn’t want to be confronted with his experience. The final sentence though indicates that he suddenly really wants to know what happened, because he is more mature now. Horses seem to have a strong symbolic meaning in this short-story. Our first impression was that the description of these animals resembles the picture of women. Especially the use of the adjectives “lovely” (p.13, l.8) and “sweet” (p.13, l.12) is not very familiar to us in the context with horses. To the narrator the horses stand for cleanliness and innocence. These animals symbolize pureness and beauty to him. The story presents a lot of interesting contrasts as well. It seems as if the boy’s world is divided into “good” and “evil” or “black” and “white”. The horses that are described by the boy in a very beautiful way stand in contrast to how he portrays the woman making out with the much admired Jerry Tillford. The boy describes the women in the farmhouse as “ugly, mean looking” (p.17, l. 5) and “rotten” (p. 18, l. 7). Compared to the horse-world this environment is very shocking to him. Another obvious contrast is reflected by his description of the “rummy looking farmhouse” (p. 16, l. 8) where he saw the women, compared to his impression of the horse tracks in an area that is “ polished up” (p. 16, l. 8) and “nice” (p. 16, l. 9). These details give the impression that the boy is thinking of the world as being evil or good, black or white. It seems like the psychological approach is the most appropriate way to understand the changes the narrator is facing and the confusion he is experiencing. The psychoanalytic criticism focuses on the importance of the unconscious nature in a character, compared to the conscious world of perception. Freud’s model of the human psyche describes social and cultural norms and morals (the superego) as being in contrast with human drives, feeling and the unconscious (the id). These two influences are mediated by the ego which is the rational part of the psyche that tries to find the middle, the resolution between the two supposedly opposing powers. The fact that the narrator is disappointed about human beings, Jerry Tillford in particular and his sexual interference with a woman, shows that the boy is confused about the powerful drives and feelings of human beings. He does not understand how people can have such a conflicting attitude. On the one hand Jerry Tillford shares with him these highly spiritual feelings for horses; on the other hand he is getting involved with women in a sexual way. The narrator feels betrayed by Jerry’s actions; they confuse him and seem to be absolutely contradictory. His unconscious, ...