Winesburg, Ohio, the masterpiece of Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), is animportant realistic work in modern American literature, in which Anderson depicted agroup of isolated and alienated grotesques.Andersons concern over the grotesques in thisnovel assumes great significance in American literature.　　 On the basis of analysis and generalization of varied views of critics home and abroad,this thesis believes Winesburg, Ohio is a story about struggles for speech made by thegrotesques in the small town who desired to express love and thoughts to others and tore-establish the bridge of communication towards the outside world.The thesis traces themain thread of the stories that every grotesques had strong desires to express somethingand focuses on the different types of struggles for speech made by them.　　 This thesis iscomposed of six parts.Introduction gives a brief account of the author, the literature review of the novel and the layout of this thesis.　　 Chapter one is the exploration of the first reason for the failure of the struggle from economic angle, that is, the shock of economic transition. It reveals that Sherwood Anderson, who had witnessed the influence the "machine civilization" made on agricultural society, held deep hatred to the inhuman canker of this emergent culture, desired to return to the traditional agricultural culture, and hoped to restore human creativity and imagination through the hard work of hands.　　 Chapter two is the description of the second reason for the failure of the struggle from social perspective, that is, shackles of traditional morality and religion. Here it starts from the relations between sexes and images of female, and strive to deal with the question of how traditional morality and religion ruined their lives and made "speechless".　　 Chapter three is an analysis of the third reason for the failure of the struggle in terms of the function of language, that is, failure of discourse. When the grotesques had resorted to the discourse to establish spiritual communication with the people around, whose chief function is to exchange information and communicate ideas, discourse could not help make themselves understood by others, but troubled them most, because of the meaninglessness and destructiveness of discourse.　　 Chapter Four indicates that Sherwood Anderson points out a way out for grotesques in Winesburg, Ohio. This chapter consists of three parts, "the sweetness of the twisted apples", moments of understanding, and hopes一growth and departure of George Willard which successively discuss the nature of grotesques and the content of the "speech", the likely scope for the "speech，一through compassion and empathetic understanding, and humans potential to achieve mutual understanding and love George Willard has proven.　　 And the thesis ends off with a conclusion that what Anderson depicted in the story of the Midwestern town is the universal living condition of human beings; and the influence of Anderson on the American literature should never be neglected.