Poetry in Hands

Throughout the context of “Hands,” Wing Bibblebaum is characterized both as a grotesque and a poet. He is also described as a fat little old man who walks nervously up and down. Wind Bibblebaum has also been the town mystery who is “submerged in a sea of doubts.” Yet, his identity doesn’t come from his appearance, but his hands. They are described as “the slender expressive fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets or behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression.” And it is also because of these hands, that Wing Bibblebaum is not named the writer. Although, Wing Bibblebaum is reclusive and grotesque because of his failure to voice his beliefs, his hands are the outlets that allow Wing to express himself, his thoughts. Additionally, Wing’s hands are described as “his distinguishing feature, the source of his frame.” He can pick the highest number of strawberries because of them. He is able to teach his students and mold their minds so that he was able “to carry a dream into the young minds.” Yet, the hands also epitomize grotesqueness because they are feared. Wing’s hands aren’t loved, but hated for their dexterity and movement. Thus for that reason, Wing hides them. Likewise, it is because of these hands that Wing is thought of as a homosexual predator. Throughout the novel, homosexuality is looked down upon by the village where Wing once taught his pupils. Simple because Wing showed his passion by “the stroking of shoulders and the touching of the hair was a part of the schoolmaster’s effort to carry a dream into the young minds.” Wing therefore was “meant by nature to be a teacher of youth” because he wanted to craft ideas, establish truths in the minds of these individuals, but was mistaken and wrongly judged as a homosexual because of the activities his hands were associated with. As a result, Wing begins to fear his own hands and view them as dangerous. Even when he is with George, he is hesitant about his hands as “slowly they stole forth and lay upon George Willard’s shoulders.” Although Wing doesn’t know what crime he has committed, he realizes that the hands are guilty. Yet, it is strange that Wing refers to them as a separate entity, as if he doesn’t have any control—they seem to have a mind of their own. Therefore, Anderson is directly challenging society for chastising those that it doesn’t understand. He does this especially through the general description of Wing’s character—“the man, who was bald and whose nervous little hands fiddle about the bare white forehead as though arranging a mass of tangled locks.” In context, baldness symbolizes his loss of strength and virility. As a result Wing is portrayed as a delicate figure that is unable to realize his dream and as a result, remains lonely because of his hands which have caused him misunderstanding. Yet Wing is only grotesque because of confusion alone. He is not truly homosexual and therefore his grotesqueness does not derive itself from an issue of sexuality. Instead, it is his futility in life and his isolation. Thus by the conclusion when George fails to appear, Wing’s life illustrates how like all the other grotesques in the story his life becomes static and disillusioned, a prevailing theme among the early 1900s.