The story "Drink" from Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio describes a young man by the name of Tom Foster. This man lives his life with minimal contact to the rest of the world and experiments with each one of life's experiences alone and only once. He accepts things as they are and treats them as an experience and an opportunity to learn. He keeps his thoughts under strict control. Occasionally there is an act he wishes to experience and he proceeds to do so, in solitude. He lives within himself. Although he may stand around in a circle of men and occasionally contribute a word or two, he is not really involved. It is a defense mechanism to allow him to precisely control his life and to protect others from suffering due to how he lives.

On page 129 the story states, "The women in the houses knew and loved Tom Foster and the tough boys in the gangs loved him also." They loved him because he gave them no reason not to. He never exposed enough of himself to give them a reason to dislike him. I am sure his relationship with the prostitutes and gangs of Cincinnati was much like his relationship with the men and boys of Winesburg described on page 130 a "standi

When Tom steals the money to buy food and is caught he takes the consequences. He is ashamed, but likes the feeling because he learns from it. I suspect the crime was much like the drink in the story. He stole it for the experience, hoping he would be caught. This is how Tom Foster lives. He does not wait for things to happen naturally but instead he makes a conscious decision to try something, the kind of thing that would just come to you or I. He creates his own events to gain his own experiences and knowledge. This is a protective mechanism. It developed when his parents died. I expect that to be a traumatizing situation for such a young boy. He was not all to comfortable with the experience and knowledge gained from that event so he began to take control to of his life and specifically decided when he would try something. Also he wanted to control himself so he would not hurt anybody else, as his parents did to him. This is described as he speaks to George Willard on page 134, "I thought f a lot of things to do, but they wouldn't work. They all hurt someone else." He created his own world of which he is the leader and the only citizen. He physically exists in our world but mentally he lives in his own as described on page 130, "As in the city in the houses of prostitution and with the rowdy boys running through the streets at night, so in Winesburg among its citizens he had always the power to be part of and yet distinctly apart from the life about him." He is complete control of what goes on. He keeps strict restraints on his thoughts as stated on page 132, "He let himself think of Helen White whenever her figure came into his mind and only conc

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Approximate Word count = 1131
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)