Sherwood Anderson shows that he was a masterful writer in the short story "Hands." The story is based on Adolph Myers and the problems that his hands create for him. He is a school teacher in Pennsylvania and is accused of touching the boys of the school in an inappropriate manner. This forces him to leave the town and change his name. He moves to Winesburg, Ohio and is now known as Wing Biddlebaum, he is reduced to picking strawberries in the fields of the town. Primarily focusing on Wing Biddlebaum's hands, there is a remarkable amount of representation of them for only being a four page story. Wing is a character that Anderson intends to be sympathized with. When he is about to be hanged in the Pennsylvanian town, he is able to leave without further punishment because, "something in his figure, so small, white, and pitiful, touched their hearts and they let him escape" (19). Wing's hands represent different things to different people and are a cause of great pain for Wing. They represent mystery, pride, and the things about ourselves that we don't like.
             Wing's hands are a great mystery and especially for George Willard, Wing's only friend in the town where he lives. Anderson writes, "When Wing would talk to George, he would close his fists and beat them upon a table or on the walls of his house" (17). This is not something that George has ever experienced before and he wants to know why Wing acts this way but George has a growing respect for Wing and this keeps him from "blurting out the questions that were often in his mind" (17). Wing is respected because he can pick as much as a hundred and forty quarts of strawberries in a day. This is mysterious because being able to pick strawberries at such a fast pace makes Wing popular for something good. But how he uses his hands when he is not picking strawberries is very strange and causes people to look a...