I Want to Know Why

A detailed Summary of I Want to Know Why


Probably this American short story is not as popular as Dickens' David Copperfield, yet it also enjoys great fame in the present world. It is coincident that Anderson also gives his readers the shadow of the world through the eyes of a child. One of the different things between the two stories is that Anderson uses the first person for his book. The hero of the story, is a particular townsboy in his teenageŠ15. He loves horses because "they are charming, clean, powerful and honest and reliable". He loves black people, too, as "they are industrious and capable and more reasonable than the whites in dealing with the kids". He expects to live in a widely open and clean world with the smell of earth and grass and the people there being honest, quick, capable and emotional. However, what he saw was quite to the opposite side of his dream. The boy saw with his own eyes that his coach, whom was so respected by the boy, hung around with an ugly-looking and bad woman in a bad-smelled place where people always spoke obscene language. The boy was then badly s


I Want to Know Why shows that Anderson is good at describing the abnormal mind of a common people under normal conditions, and the wounded mind and abnormal psychology. He is so interested in describing people's mind through the actual life. He likes very much to write about the change of mind in a short moment as is not easy to obtain, the fitful life like dreamland and people's pursuit and exploring . As to him, it's more important for a writer to show what people think about . Therefore , Anderson give up the traditional structure of a novel and turns towards a new way to romance an atmosphere, a mood, a place, a people , a dream, with his good imagination and clairvoyance. Anderson doesn't attract his readers with the plots, but with the exposing of the nature of things through a sudden moment of enlightenment or a meaningful image. Anderson is taken as a signpost for modern American novels because of not only the above-mentioned personal characteristics, but also some other features. He doesn't follow the traditional method of writing a pe

Some common words found in the essay are:
Why Anderson, David Copperfield, Probably American, Hemingway Faulkner, playing role, anderson doesn't, anderson readers,

Approximate Word count = 714
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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