Hands

Wing Biddlebaum is the town oddity of Winesburg, a bald, nervous man who talks with his hands and then shoves them in his pockets as if they had done something wrong. Only one person in town, young George Willard, has come close to him. One afternoon Wing forgets himself, rests his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and runs home in terror. Then the narrator tells us what happened twenty years earlier in a Pennsylvania schoolyard, and the fear makes terrible sense.

What happens in Hands

Wing Biddlebaum, a fat, nervous little man who looks much older than his forty years, paces the porch of his small house near Winesburg, Ohio, hoping the young newspaper reporter George Willard will visit. George is the only person in town Wing trusts. With him, Wing talks eagerly and uses his quick, expressive hands, which earned him his nickname and which the town admires only because he can pick huge numbers of strawberries with them. Once, while urging George to stop imitating the townspeople and learn to dream, Wing lays his hands on the boy’s shoulders, then jumps up in horror and hurries home. George decides not to ask about the hands. The narrator then reveals Wing’s past. Years before, under the name Adolph Myers, he was a gifted, gentle schoolteacher in Pennsylvania who expressed his care for his pupils by touching their shoulders and hair. A disturbed boy accused him of unspeakable things, other boys were pressured into agreeing, and a saloon keeper beat him in the schoolyard. A mob that meant to hang him let him flee into the night, throwing mud and sticks after him. He took a new name from a box of goods at a freight station, went to live with an aunt in Winesburg, and has spent twenty years hiding his hands, believing without understanding that they were to blame. The story ends that evening as Wing, alone, kneels to pick up crumbs from his floor with rapid fingers, looking like a priest telling the beads of a rosary.

Where and when Hands happens

Timeline the story arc, beat by beat

1. Waiting
   The porch

   Wing paces his porch at dusk, hoping George Willard will come, while girls on a passing wagon mock his hair.

2. Friendship
   The only friend

   The narrator explains that George is the one person in Winesburg with whom Wing loses his timidity and talks freely.

3. The hands
   A town curiosity

   Wing’s restless hands gave him his name, and the town values them only for how many strawberries they can pick.

4. The slip
   Hands on the shoulders

   Urging George to dream, Wing forgets himself, touches the boy’s shoulders, and then flees home in terror.

5. The past
   Adolph Myers

   Twenty years earlier, Wing was a beloved Pennsylvania teacher who touched his pupils’ shoulders and hair as he taught.

6. The accusation
   Driven out

   A disturbed boy’s false story leads to a beating and a mob that nearly hangs him before chasing him into the night.

7. The ending
   Crumbs on the floor

   Alone that evening, Wing picks up bread crumbs with quick fingers, like a priest praying over a rosary.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in Hands what the story is really about

Symbols & motifs

Conflicts

Literary devices

Flashback

The story shifts from Wing’s present to his past as a teacher, revealing why his hands frighten him.

Intrusive narrator

The narrator comments directly, calling for a poet and inviting the reader to judge more fairly than the town did.

Symbolism

The hands carry the whole meaning of the story, from affection to shame.

Imagery

The closing picture of Wing kneeling in lamplight like a priest recasts him as a figure of devotion rather than disgrace.

Irony

The town is proud of Wing’s hands for picking strawberries, never knowing what they cost him.

Important quotes

The ending of Hands, explained

Hands ends quietly, with no confrontation and no resolution, and that is the point. After the flashback reveals how Adolph Myers was accused, beaten, and driven from Pennsylvania, the story returns to the present evening. George Willard has not come. Wing eats bread and honey, washes his few dishes, and sets up his cot. Then he notices crumbs on his clean floor and kneels to pick them up, carrying them to his mouth one by one with astonishing speed. In the lamplight he looks like a priest at a church service, his fingers moving like a devotee’s through the beads of a rosary. The image does two things. It shows how starved and solitary Wing’s life has become, reduced to a lonely ritual in an empty house. It also reframes the hands the town once called monstrous as hands made for devotion and care. Wing himself still does not understand what happened to him; he only knows the hands were blamed. The narrator’s repeated wish for a poet to tell this story fairly is answered by the ending, which asks the reader to see Wing with the sympathy Winesburg never offered. George’s decision not to ask about the hands, made just before the flashback, looks both kind and inadequate: it spares Wing, but it also leaves him alone with his fear.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Wing is a nervous old man in a small Ohio town who talks with his hands and then hides them. His only friend is a young reporter named George. One day, while telling George to dream big, Wing puts his hands on George’s shoulders and then runs away scared. Then we learn why: years ago Wing was a kind teacher who patted his students, and a troubled boy made up a terrible story about him. The town believed it, beat him, and chased him away. Ever since, Wing has blamed his hands. The story asks us to feel sorry for a gentle person whom a whole town misjudged.

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Compare & connect the story universe

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• Why does Wing Biddlebaum hide his hands
• What happened to Adolph Myers in Pennsylvania
• What do the hands symbolize in Hands by Sherwood Anderson
• What is the meaning of the ending of Hands
• What is the relationship between Wing and George Willard
• How does Hands fit into Winesburg, Ohio