Death explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• The Search for Meaning and Connection

  Elizabeth's lifelong quest for a 'true word' and her personification of death as a lover highlight her search for meaning beyond her constrained life.

• Repression and Frustration

  Elizabeth's failed marriage and her hidden money symbolize her repressed desires and frustration with her life in Winesburg.

• The Past and Its Ghosts

  Elizabeth's past as a wild girl haunts her present; George's memories of his mother and the legacy of her hidden money shape his future.

Characters to notice

• George Willard

  Struggles with his mother's death, feeling both grief and a selfish desire to leave Winesburg; experiences a strange impulse to see her body.

• Elizabeth Willard

  Dies after a long illness; her life is marked by a hunger for death as a lover and a failed marriage; she hid eight hundred dollars for George's escape.

• Doctor Reefy

  Attends Elizabeth in her final moments and sits with her body; shares an intimate connection with her, having been one of her lovers.

• Tom Willard

  Grieves his wife's death, though he had resented her; his tears and dyed mustache are noted.

• Helen White

  Mentioned as the girl George had planned to see; her note to him contrasts with his mother's death.

Key passages

• “The sick woman spent the last few months of her life hungering for death. Along the road of death she went, seeking, hungering. She personified the figure of death and made him now a strong black-haired youth running over hills, now a stern quiet man marked and scarred by the business of living.”

  In her final months, Elizabeth yearned for death, imagining it as a lover who could be young and vigorous or weary and scarred.

  Illustrates Elizabeth's romanticized view of death as an escape from her unfulfilling life.

• “The dead woman’s son sat down in a chair and looked at the floor. He again thought of his own affairs and definitely decided he would make a change in his life, that he would leave Winesburg.”

  George, sitting by his mother's body, resolved to leave Winesburg and pursue a new life, perhaps as a newspaperman.

  Shows George's self-absorption and his decision to escape, which is catalyzed by his mother's death.

• “As for the eight hundred dollars the dead woman had kept hidden so long and that was to give George Willard his start in the city, it lay in the tin box behind the plaster by the foot of his mother’s bed.”

  The eight hundred dollars Elizabeth had hidden for years, intended to fund George's departure, remained concealed behind the wall near her bed.

  Highlights the secret legacy Elizabeth left for her son, symbolizing her hope for his escape.