"Sophistication"

In the short story "Sophistication", George looks back for the first time on his childhood, and as Anderson writes, this moment could be referred to as a "moment when he crosses the line into manhood" (Anderson 234). As people usually say, once you reach adulthood, you begin to wish you were young again. I believe this is what happens to George and Helen in this story. George walks around the fair, and begins to remember moments with Helen. He wishes for “someone to understand the feeling that had taken possession of him after his mother’s death” (Anderson 234). All the sudden he has an urge to “touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another” (Anderson 235). The symbol of hands helps point out the theme of inability to communicate and isolation, which takes possession of numerous characters throughout the novel. He longs for Helen, in hopes that she will be able to understand his needs and he will fill that emptiness inside of him up. Meanwhile, Helen, returns from college and walks around with an instructor from college. She feels as if he is boring and Helen then seeks out to spend time with George. When they finally encounter each other, they have this sudden urge to go run around in the darkness, like "excited little animals" (Anderson 242). I believe that this chapter of the novel, portrays the fact that George and Helen needed to once more feel young and for the last time have their wild, youthful night as 'animals' before they separated and left to live their different lives in adulthood. This moment allows for both of them to be in “touch” with one another and fulfill that emptiness and isolation, which they feel. “The presence of Helen renewed and refreshed him. It was as though her woman’s hand was assisting him to make some minute readjustment of the machinery of his life” (Anderson 241). She made him better, but the word ‘machinery’ implies that he looked at his life as a boring, job. As if it is something routine and pre-made. Does he feel that leaving town will allow him to full express himself? Become more real and alive? Perhaps they don’t really love each other, they are just using each other to fulfill their desires of the night. “I have come to this lonely place and here is this other” (Anderson 241). The quote implies that George is only using Helen merely to have someone who understands his strong desire to express his final, youthful urges, before he steps into manhood. At the end, both of them received what they so strongly desired and a moment of communication, a bond between man  or boy and woman or girl was finally formed.