Death in the Woods Analysis

The small, unnamed town in the middle of nowhere—and the creepy woods that surround it—shapes the plot of "Death in the Woods."Midwest MadnessThe narrator hails from a tiny town in the middle o...

"Death in the Woods" features a classic example of an unreliable narrator.Although the narrator is present for some of the events of the story, he doesn't play a role in the plot or even interact w...

Here are two things we know about Sherwood Anderson—he loves to keep it real, but he's really just a goth kid at heart. Like, Hot Topic mallrat-level goth."A Death in the Woods" is a prime exampl...

In "Death in the Woods," the narrator is looking back at an important childhood event that shaped the man he has become.Because of this, the narrator spends a lot of time reflecting on the nature o...

Anderson uses a simple, conversational style to tell his story. In many ways, it feels a lot like someone just talking to you, complete with side-notes, explanations, and sudden jumps in time.But t...

This one is about as straight-forward as they come: "Death in the Woods" is about a death in the woods. We'd mark this one as a spoiler but c'mon—that'd be like someone telling you that Fight Clu...

"Death in the Woods" ends with a reminder that most of the story we just read actually took place in the narrator's head.True, the narrator did see an old woman's body lying in the middle of the fo...

You're not going to run into anything too crazy in "Death in the Woods." Granted, some of the narrator's word choice rings a bit out of date, but it shouldn't trip you up too much.

Old Ladies Gone MildWe open on an old lady (followed by a few gaunt dogs) walking into a small town in the hopes of scoring some food. This type of old woman is common in these parts, often seen...

Although Sherwood Anderson's radio and film appearances have been lost to time, our elite team of Shmoop researchers (Shmoopsearchers, for short) have discovered this transcript of him being interv...

There are a few references to sexuality in "Death in the Woods"—none of them very explicit. The reason why this one earns a PG-13 rating is that the references to sexuality in the book are rather...