A Blessing in Disguise or Disguised as a Blessing? 

Having been unable to further discuss the role of peculiar character, Doctor Reefy in Winesburg Ohio throughout our recent panel group discussions, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to expand and share my thoughts on this extremely captivating subject. Throughout his significant roles in the personal lives of “the tall dark girl” (Anderson 11) and Elizabeth Willard in the inner narratives of both Paper Pills and Death, there was but a fundamental question that emerged through the clouds of confusion and connection in my mind. What is it concerning this old and oddly reserved man that supposedly “soothed” these women? Was he sane or insane, good or bad, moral or immoral, honest or dishonest?  

As I further analyzed both stories involving Doctor Reefy, I was able to draw connections and similarities between his relationships – connections that I simply couldn’t accept as mere coincidences. A similarity was drawn due to the way by which the narrator refers to both of these women. In Death, Elizabeth Willard is called a “tall beautiful girl” (Anderson 137) which happened to be identical to the description of Doctor Reefy’s wife of one year, described “quiet, tall, and dark, and to many people she seemed very beautiful” (Anderson 10). Both women came to Doctor Reefy in times of need and contemplation, simply to relieve the endless thoughts and afflictions of their minds. But the primary event corresponding to the other lies in the death of both the “tall dark girl” and Elizabeth Willard. An increasingly ironic – even suspicious – feeling emerged inside me as I realized that Doctor Reefy was unable to save these two women. Both scared and helpless women that became romantically attached to Reefy fell to death, arousing the question – Was Doctor Reefy indeed the comforting man we all perceived him to be?

From the get-go, Doctor Reefy’s character possessed strange attributes as he loved “filling his pockets with scraps of paper that became hard balls and were thrown away” (Anderson 11). Connecting this to the title of this short narrative, these paper balls are referred to as paper pills. Perhaps they contained some sort of medicinal quality that allowed Doctor Reefy to comfort himself. The truths written upon these scraps of paper were Reefy’s escape – they were secret. In Paper Pills it is said that, “During the winter he read to her all of the odds and ends of thoughts he has scribbled on the bits of paper” (Anderson 12). It is also said that “the tall dark girl” dies in the following spring. Was Doctor Reefy actually the one responsible for her death? Could he not stand that another individual had invaded on these truths that plagued his scraps of paper and essentially consumed his mind?

Additionally, I found myself pondering how Doctor Reefy “did not see the women he had held in his arms again until after her death” (Anderson 140) in Death. Why did Elizabeth leave him at the point they were to become true lovers? It was told she descended the stairs and did not visit him again – the stairs seemed to represent that Elizabeth Willard was descending onto a different level – the stairs essentially became a passage to her alternate mode of existence that characterized the remainder of her life. After her affair with Doctor Reefy, she became intensely obsessed with the release of death, she hungered for death, and she became more ill than ever before. And the question remains – Was Doctor Reefy indeed the comforting man we all perceived him to be?

The answer may never be certain or fully discovered but it offers a completely new angle in the two short stories, and on the comprehension of the idea of what truly comprises the grotesques in this novel. This was among my favorite mystery that characterized the novel – and believe me, there are plenty!