Comparing and contrasting Mrs. Grimes, from Sherwood Anderson’s “Death In the Woods,” and Ole Anderson, from Ernest Hemmingway’s “The Killers,” reveals that they are opposites. Mrs. Grimes starts off her life in America weak and gets stronger even after death. In contrast Ole Anderson was a boxer in his early years, a symbol of strength, and gets weaker in character while he awaits his death. This inverted parallel between these two characters foils one another so that their strengths and weaknesses are heightened.

Mrs. Grimes shows her weakness, her vulnerability, when we are introduced to her as she worked on the German’s farm and her increasing strength of character up to her death. “She was a young thing then and scared to death” when she worked for the Germans and Mr. Grimes came in and rescued her, if you could really call it a rescuing (Anderson 1096). She cried, ran, huddled, and did all the things that girls do when they are scared and took refuge in Jake Grimes when he lent a shoulder. This does not necessarily signify that she is a weak person for being scared, but rather vulnerable to her new surroundings and to new experiences and people without the guidance of parents. She marries Jake Grimes and they do not live happily ever after (life would be hard pressed to be happy when your husbands family name has both the words grime and grim within it), this is what gave her the strength that we see in the end. With all her hard work around the home “her slender shoulders became stooped” giving her a weathered old appearance (Anderson 1097). A person who has endured such labor must be a strong person or they would not have continued that labor to acquire those stooped features. There are other glimpses of strength within Mrs. Grimes such as her determination that everything will work out; somehow she will get everyone fed. She never asks for charity, which shows that determination to work things through. Mrs. Grimes buys her groceries with a precious few eggs that her hens lay about the barn, basically her only available method of payment. Her strongest point is that she never gives up, through thick or thin.

Despite her seeming rock solidness there is a resignation to her position in life. Mrs. Grimes never complains about her position in life, her lack of money, or food, or comfort. She never second guesses things or plays “what if” with her life, she just lives it. This does not appear to be a strength of character until you view her attitude towards it. She is a caregiver, a mother of creatures, the person who ensures the survival of those who depend on her; she knows this is her role in life and embraces it -- draws strength from it. She constantly thinks of those in her care and is completely geared towards the survival of her dependents. When Mrs. Grimes dies, she dies peacefully of mind, body, and spirit as if she just sat there and her soul lightly floated away in the cold afternoon. And then “even after death” she provided food for the hounds that were there (Anderson 1103).

On the other hand, Ole Anderson is shown briefly in “The Killers,” but much of his character came through. As a young man Ole was a boxer -- a strong, tough-guy image. When one thinks of boxers they think of a person such as Mike Tyson or Evander Holyfield; someone who goes after what they want and seems invincible to those who are not boxers. Maybe that was what he was like when he was a boxer and got himself into trouble, whatever he got into he “got in wrong” (Hemingway 1394). So now, many years later, he’s living his life out in this little town and decides that he’s going to give up trying to hide from those he got entangled with in his past. This is quite a startling revelation, a near immortal, a tough-guy is going to give up. When Nick finds Ole fully dressed “lying on the bed looking at the wall” he saw a resigned man who was trying to get the courage to face his death (Hemmingway 1394). Ole wanted no more running, no police intervention, no problem solving, he was resigned to die -- once he had the courage to leave his room. This metamorphous from invincible boxer to a scared man is almost an inconceivable change. The fact that Ole doesn’t have the courage to face his killers shows that he his human, but also shows that he has a great weakness. Unlike Mrs. Grimes who died a peaceful death, Ole Anderson will die a horrid death of murder.

In comparing and contrasting Mrs. Grimes and Ole Anderson one can see that they are parallels in many ways. The only difference is that as one grew stronger towards death, the other grew weaker. Strength of character was shown in many ways with Mrs. Grimes, in her determination to always get by and take care of those who needed her. Weakness of character was shown by our small acquaintance with Ole Anderson, and gives a real human quality, given his situation. Everybody has a weakness, most of us are afraid of death, even when we are expecting it. I believe that Ole Anderson showed a weakness in character, not because he showed fear of death, but because he gave up trying to live. In looking at these two characters I noticed some similarities and some differences, and together they work as foils to present both their weaknesses and their strengths.