The theme of Sherwood Anderson's Hands is a continued pattern of alienation, loneliness, and difficulty of communication. Throughout the story, Wing struggles to be "normal." He struggles to "keep his hands to himself" as he remembers the saloon keeper shouting. Which makes it difficult for him to communicate with anyone but George Willard; and even with him he still has difficulty opening up. In a town where Wing has resided for twenty years, he is the outsider. He is handicapped in the sense that he cannot communicate with the outside world in a manner fit for society. Wing wants very much to be a part of that society, he longs to interact, to express what he is thinking and feeling. But his past isolates and scares him because he does not understand what he did wrong, therefore he knows not how to fix it. .
In Wing's youth, he was a school teacher in a town far from Winesburg, Ohio. Wing was full of life and knowledge and enjoyed communicating with the young students. He was a unique man in the sense that he communicated not only through words, but also through touch. "In a way the voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders and the touching of the hair was a part of the schoolmaster's effort to carry a dream into the young minds." Wing was full of dreams, dreams he carried for himself and for the children. He held a true love for his students with the utmost concern for their well-being and their future. "Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the boys and they began also to dream." Wing gave the young children a wonderful gift. He gave them the confidence to believe in themselves and others. He used his hands vigorously but gently with the young boys, never hurting or touching them in an impure manner. But sadly enough, one night a boy "imagined unspeakable things and in the morning went forth to tell his dreams as facts.
