ADVENTURE

1. What would be your comment on the love story between Alice & Ned?
What do you think of Ned’s conduct with the girl? Does such conduct have
anything in common with the rituals & nature of love in your community?

The love story between Alice and Ned is the typical type of love of the last
century. It is a love in which the woman has such a passive role, waiting
relentlessly for the man who never comes back. In the love of Alice and Ned, I see
Alice’s innocence. She kept holding on the image of Ned (or the past) without
moving on even when after years. I have nothing to comment about Ned’s
psychological sequence. He changed due to his surrounding environment. We
cannot conclude that he was not loyal. The only thing we can conclude about Ned
is that he tried to adapt to his new place, new friends and new relationships which
is extremely ordinary and understandable in the society nowadays. We don’t
expect others to stay the same. Therefore, the only thing I felt when reading this is
Alice’s pure innocence and undeniable loyalty.

2. Alice & Ned’s love ended up in a break-up although it was never so openly
declared. Explain.

Their love got challenged the moment Ned decided to move to the city for better
work and pay. He left Alice and set off for new experiences. They kept writing to
each other until one day there was no letter written and sent. From that moment,
Alice started to feel missing Ned without hearing anything from him. This reminds
me of “Notebook” by Nicholas Spark in which the two lovers are separated
unofficially because of the non-appearance of frequent letters. Without letters, the
only means of communication at that time, they started losing each other. That is
why their break-up had never been declared. No one would know except those two.

3. Alice’s attitude of forbearance & resignation makes some food for thought.
Do you agree?

4. Analyze paragraph 11.

This line may be important as it further highlights Alice’s inability to let go of Ned (and the past).
Anderson may also be placing a spotlight on the tradition that existed at the time the story was written
with it being believed that a single woman should remain faithful to her first love and not explore any
type of relationship with another man. Something that becomes clearer to the reader when Alice whispers
‘I am his wife and shall remain his wife whether he comes back or not.’ Also Alice isolates herself from
other suitors believing it to be ‘monstrous’ to give herself to another man. Which would further suggest
that Alice adheres to the traditional beliefs that existed at the time when it came to a man and a woman
having a relationship

5. What did Alice do to lessen her loneliness? Did it work?

She joins a church and begins to go to regular meetings, "trying feebly at first, but with growing
determination, to get a new hold upon life." A drab drugstore clerk often walks her home and though she
apparently realizes that she could marry him, she won't settle for such a sterile life

6. What are the impulses behind Alice’s visit to the lovers’ places in the wood?
7. Comment on the brief relationship between Alice & Will Hurley, the store
clerk. Do you think this grows out of her desire to renew her contacts with
the outside world?
8. Analyze paragraph 20. What do you understand by ‘something’?
9. Give a psychological analysis of Alice’s adventure in the rain? How did she
feel in doing so?
10. Analyze the last paragraph.

The story of Alice Hindman is another study in appearance and reality. Alice, at twenty-seven, is
a quiet, shy clerk in Winney's Dry Goods Store, but Anderson tells us "beneath a placid exterior
a continual ferment went on." The first part of the story is really about the absence of adventure,
the eleven years since Alice was sixteen, when she loved and was loved by Ned Currie. These
eleven years are described in a deliberately non-dramatic narrative style to suggest the dull life of
a small-town spinster. The time designations are vague; Anderson uses such phrases as "in the
spring" and "during the fall" to suggest how monotonously the "weeks ran into months and
months into years.

When Alice was with Ned Currie the "outer crust of her life, all of her natural diffidence and
reserve, was torn away." But Alice suffered as many women have suffered because of the sex
role forced on her by society. She had wanted to go with Ned to Cleveland and help him get a
start, even suggesting that they could marry later. But Ned wanted to protect her and wouldn't
agree to such an arrangement. So the young man went to the big city and, of course, he soon
forgot "Alice in Winesburg"; thus Anderson implies that Ned had other Alices in other towns.
Meanwhile, Alice Hindman, continuing to fulfill the sex role in which she is cast, remains the
constant lover.

Alice finally realizes that she is getting old and that Ned is not coming back. She joins a church
and begins to go to regular meetings, "trying feebly at first, but with growing determination, to
get a new hold upon life." A drab drugstore clerk often walks her home and though she
apparently realizes that she could marry him, she won't settle for such a sterile life. Alice's
loneliness and frustration reaches a point of hysteria one rainy night — and she has an
"adventure." She wants so desperately "to be loved, to have something answer the call that (is]
growing louder and louder within her." She feels vaguely that the rain might have a creative
effect on her, so she runs naked into the night.

Everything in the story has contributed to our impression of her isolation. Her widowed mother
has remarried, her employer is a taciturn old man, the drugstore clerk who walks her home
doesn't sit on the porch and visit as she wishes he would. Now, on this night of adventure, the
man to whom she cries out is old and somewhat deaf, so he doesn't hear her plea for help. The
adventure ends without anyone — except Alice — ever knowing about it. Her future holds
nothing but increased loneliness.

In this basically non-dramatic story, the frustration of Alice Hindman's life is conveyed in a few
memorable scenes culminating on a momentous night. Readers probably recall her with her head
down on the counter in Winney's Dry Goods Store, or kneeling beside her bed where she shaped
a human form out of a rolled blanket, or running naked in the rainy night, or crawling on her
hands and knees through the grass to the house. Perhaps most vividly, one remembers the scene
when Alice lies in bed thinking, "What is the matter with me? I will do something dreadful if I
am not careful," and then turning her face to the wall, she begins to try "to face bravely the fact
that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg." In such scenes Anderson
poignantly portrays the lonely, frustrated people not just in Winesburg but throughout the world.

In Adventure by Sherwood Anderson we have the theme of aspirations, innocence, loneliness,

isolation, letting go, paralysis and connection. Taken from his Winesburg, Ohio collection the
story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader
realises how symbolically important Anderson’s physical description of Alice is. By describing
Alice’s head as being large and overshadowing her body Anderson may be suggesting that Alice
rather than living life, lives her life in her head. In essence thinking about life (and Ned) rather
than actually going out and living her life (with another man). The fact that Alice’s shoulders are
‘stooped’ may also be important as it suggests that Alice might be carrying a weight (the past).
Anderson also appears to be exploring the theme of aspirations. It is clear to the reader that when
Alice was sixteen she had fallen in love with Ned and just as Ned wanted to progress in the world
and move to Cleveland, Alice wanted to follow him. With the intention of first living with Ned
and then when she was older marrying him. At no stage in the story does Alice let go of Ned or
her aspirations to marry him despite the passing of time.

There is also a sense of innocence in the story. Something that is noticeable after Alice and Ned
have made love. Ned tells Alice ‘now we will have to stick to each other, whatever happens we
will have to do that.’ Though it is clear to the reader that after Ned leaves Winesburg he eventually
forgets about Alice, she on the other hand remains true to Ned’s statement. Which again would
highlight Alice’s inability to let go of either Ned or the past. It is also noticeable that ‘for a number
of years nothing could have induced her (Alice) to believe that Ned Currie would not in the end
return to her.’ This line may be important as it further highlights Alice’s inability to let go of Ned
(and the past). Anderson may also be placing a spotlight on the tradition that existed at the time
the story was written with it being believed that a single woman should remain faithful to her first
love and not explore any type of relationship with another man. Something that becomes clearer
to the reader when Alice whispers ‘I am his wife and shall remain his wife whether he comes back
or not.’ Also Alice isolates herself from other suitors believing it to be ‘monstrous’ to give herself
to another man. Which would further suggest that Alice adheres to the traditional beliefs that
existed at the time when it came to a man and a woman having a relationship.

The theme of loneliness and isolation is self-evident in the story. Rather than attempting to engage
with other people Alice begins to get attached to inanimate objects in her room. Also when praying
she whispered ‘things she wanted to say to her lover.’ If anything rather than living her life, Alice
is living in her head. Isolated from others. Something that is noticeable when she takes out her
bank book and stares at it. Imagining ‘that the interest would support both herself and her future
husband.’ It is also interesting that Alice has very little conversation with her employer and at
times the store can be empty for hours. This is important as it suggests that not only is Alice lonely
in work but she is further isolated from others for most of the day while she is working. Both
Alice’s loneliness and isolation contribute to her feeling desperate. Something that the reader
becomes aware of when we discover that on occasions Alice would put her head on the store
counter and cry. Repeating the words ‘Oh, Ned, I am waiting.’ If anything there is a complete
paralysis in Alice’s life. Unlike Ned who has left and moved to Chicago. Alice is going nowhere
and remains rooted to the past. Again unable to let go.

The ending of the story is also interesting as it becomes clear to the reader just how desperate Alice
has become. She places a blanket between the sheets of her bed and caresses it. What is significant
about Alice’s action is the fact that the blanket does not necessarily represent Ned or any other
man. But instead it serves to highlight how lonely Alice really is. She wants to be loved by
someone. How deeply affected by her loneliness Alice actually is, is also noticeable by the actions
she takes in order to try and connect with another person. She runs out onto the street naked. The
fact that the old man is ‘somewhat deaf’ may also be important as it suggests that Alice has not
been heard, literally and symbolically. It is also interesting that when Alice returns to her room she
pulls the dressing table across the doorway. Symbolically Anderson could be suggesting not only
is Alice blocking out the world around her but she may also be trapping herself again. Having
already spent the last eleven years of her life waiting for Ned and then for somebody to love her.
If anything Alice is to remain alone or paralyzed and stuck in Winesburg.