Observations of a Man

Someone once said, “A man is defined by his actions”, this is such in the story of “Hands” by Sherwood Anderson. “Hands” is a story of a man who called himself Wing Biddlebaum, a mysterious man known for nothing more than his peculiarity and his hands. The old man doesn’t have any friends, except for young George Willard. Only to Willard does Biddlebaum express his dream and try to start to close an old chapter of his life. The dream, as described in “Hands”, shows the readers the old man’s scholarly nature, for a simpler period of time in his life and a yearning for individuality.

In the story, Biddlebaum’s vision is him trying to communicate to George Willard what his idea of a perfect life is. His perfect life consists of him as a scholar trying to pass on knowledge and wisdom to the young, ignorant men of the town. Formerly Adolph Meyers, Biddlebaum was a teacher, a wise young man where students at his school did look up to him, confide in and some even love him. Wing Biddlebaum says that “In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them” (page #). Biddlebaum has this vision of a life that young men would be proud to be living a life of their own and that they should be their own individual person. Why would these young men need to be loud and boisterous and taunt the young women of the town? The young me should be leaning of Wing Biddlebaum for guidance. In the story, Biddlebaum scolds George Willard for trying to appease the rest of the town by not acting like himself, making it seem as though Biddlebaum wants Willard to be included in his dream of the young men in the garden.

A significant point in the story is while Wing Biddlebaum is telling his vision to George Willard, he gets so entwined and involved, his hands are released from their nervous habits and he forgets about them completely. During these forgotten hand movements, Biddlebaum touches Willard in a soft way that brings up memories from the past. As he “caresses “Willard, Biddlebaum is shot back into his consciousness and becomes frightened then continues retreats back to the shy introvert that is his current self. He almost brought himself back to the younger version of himself. I think that Wing Biddlebaum was not touching Willard in a sensual way, but as he goes back to that golden age, he thinks he is reassuring Willard in an academic way. When he was a teacher, Adolph Myers would caress his students and their worries were forgotten.

Now, ironically in Biddlebaum’s golden years he is the man that no one seeks to find and is all alone, “Wing Biddlebaum, forever frightened and beset by a ghostly band of doubts, did not think of himself as in any way a part of the life of the town where he had lived for twenty years.”(Find page number). When he was a young teacher, going by the name of Adolph Myers, people and young students would seek him out. At this younger age, Myers was a scholarly figure to them, and now in this town, he is known for nothing other than his hands.

When talking to George Willard, Biddlebaum becomes a different person and his true character starts to come out from behind his fiddling hands. In the first part of discussing his dream in the story, he says “In the presence of George Willard, Wing Biddlebaum, who for twenty years had been the town mystery, lost something of his timidity, and his shadowy personality, submerged in a sea of doubts, came forth to look at the world.”(Page #) Biddlebaum’s character changes into a confident, scholarly one as his vision progresses. It seems as though Biddblebaum sees himself as this scholarly man in front of these young students. Not only does Biddlebaum seem himself as the teacher, he sees the “chiming young, clean boys” around him (page number). These boys are the young, prepubescent ignorant kids who need to be educated.

I think Biddlebaum is an innocent old man who is looking for peace and he finds it in this dream. He will never get over the traumatic event that happened to him as Adolph Myers, but has made him a new life. I think his dream reveals his innocence and his overall loneliness with how his life has turned out.