Helen White
The banker's daughter, home from college for the county fair, and the one person George Willard wants to understand him.
Someone who is not saying words at her. She spends the day of the fair with a college instructor whose talk wearies her, and when her mother starts on the subject of her breeding she leaves the house, runs into a side street and calls for George Willard.
The book
At a glance
- The banker's daughter, and the subject of 'Sophistication'
- Daughter of Banker White and of Mrs. White, who founded the town's poetry club
- College in Cleveland
- The huge brick house Banker White built on Buckeye Street
- 'The Thinker,' 'The Teacher,' 'Drink,' 'Death' and 'Departure'
- Seth Richmond, in a round boyish hand, on her mother's stationery
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeHelen White is the daughter of the Winesburg banker and the young woman at the center of 'Sophistication,' the second-to-last story in Winesburg, Ohio, the 1919 book of linked short stories by the American writer Sherwood Anderson. One boy who is in love with her calls her the richest and most attractive girl in town. In Winesburg that means the huge brick house Banker White built on Buckeye Street, which overshadowed what had been the show place of the town. Her mother introduced the village to the door knocker and started a women's club for the study of poetry.
She is away at college in Cleveland for most of the book and comes home for a single day at the county fair. She brings a young instructor from the college, is pleased to be seen with him in the grandstand because he is well dressed and a stranger, and by nightfall wants him gone. On the veranda her mother says there is no one in Winesburg fit to associate with a girl of Helen's breeding. Helen walks through the house, runs down the back stairs into the garden, and goes out into a side street calling George Willard's name.
Two other boys in the book are in love with her without her knowing much about it. Seth Richmond, a silent boy she used to write notes to, walks with her one June evening and comes away certain she will end up with someone who talks. Tom Foster, who once worked in her father's stable, thinks about her at night and gets drunk once on the strength of it.
How the book draws them
- Who she is in townThe banker's daughter, and by common agreement the best match in Winesburg. Her mother hung the heavy brass knocker on the front door, an innovation in the village, and started a women's club for the study of poetry.
- Where she has beenCleveland, at college. She thinks the months of theatres and lighted streets and great crowds have changed her profoundly, and she wants George Willard to feel the change.
- The notesAs a girl she went through a spell of writing notes to Seth Richmond, a silent boy her own age. They turned up hidden in his schoolbooks, were handed to him by a child in the street, and came through the village post office, written in a round boyish hand on her mother's stationery by a mind inflamed by novel reading.
- The escort at the fairA young instructor from her college, invited down for the day by her mother. She pays him enough attention in the grandstand, under the eyes of her old schoolmates, that he begins thinking a scholar needs money and he should marry a woman who has some.
- The evening at the grandstandShe and George Willard climb the hill to the deserted fairground after dark and sit under the roof of the half-decayed old grandstand. They say very little. They kiss and then draw back from it, twice, and neither can afterwards explain what they got out of the silence.
- How the evening endsComing down the hill they stop being solemn. She runs ahead, trips him, and he rolls down the slope shouting with laughter. "In the darkness they played like two splendid young things in a young world." Then she takes his arm and they walk the rest of the way in silence.
- The boys who think about herSeth Richmond walks her home one June night, tells her George Willard is in love with her, and decides that when it comes to loving someone it will never be him. Tom Foster, a gentle boy who worked in her father's barn, builds his one drunken night entirely around her.