Thoughts of Spoon River

Reuben Pantier, product of a broken home - a father defeated by his wife, a mother disgusted by her husband. A boy with all the wrong role models, learning, from his father, that men can take what they desire from women, and, from his mother, that women will discard their men like so much garbage. No wonder that young Reuben little respected anyone, including - or, maybe, especially - himself, adopting a life of debauchery, such that he was deemed the "worthless son of Benjamin Pantier" by A.D. Blood, a view probably held communally. Pantier acknowledges this effect his parents had upon him, maybe seeing it as his excuse for the life of "wine and women and joy of life" he fled towards after his "trouble" with the Millner's daughter, Dora Williams. His lifestyle, like the young man himself, is a product of his upbringing, adopted without thought or care, a seeking after those immediate gratifications that serve to fill the void in the lives of those w...

The epitaph of Mrs Benjamin Pantier gives us pause for thought. It is, to say the least, problematical. She claims, for instance, that her husband has probably already told us that “all the men loved him” and “most of the women pitied him”. But, of course, Benjamin Pantier told us no such thing! Was she, then, so oblivious of her husband?   It would be so easy to condemn her out of hand for her seemingly dismissive attitude toward her husband. He is probably entitled to his feeling of being discarded like so much waste.   This is where we should pause and ponder. What Benjamin Pantier did tell us was that he had been an attorney at law, with some aspiration and achievement behind him. And then he married a “well-endowed” woman.   To our modern ears, this phrase may have particular connotations regarding a woman’s physical charms. In the latter part of the nineteenth-century/early twentieth-century, it is unlikely a woman of respectable upbringing would so de...

We have already seen, in the marriage of the McGee’s, that the state of matramony is no heaven-sent blessing. We should not be unduly surprised, then, at the state of play between the Pantiers - that Benjamin has been driven from his own house by a wife who finds him disgusting. The soap opera that is the series of poems dealing with the Pantiers would appear bathetic, coming straight after Kinsey Keene’s inspiring call to arms against all that corrupts the heart of Spoon River, if not for one simple fact. The series of five poems makes clear for us, firstly, that the grossest kinds of corruption lie in the hearts of ordinary men and women, not just the high officials of the town. Yet, they further reveal, there is hope that the most wanton wastrel may be brought to change his ways if only those who believe remain faithful. And, finally, we are shown that it is not the Anthology’s organisation that results in bathos; it is life itself. Benjamin Pantier, then, is guilty of not...

A couple of poems ago, Harry Carey Goodhue looked nothing but pathetic for declaring his various fights with bank and court-house, leading citizens and business men. So, what to make of Kinsey Keene, who, without specifying any particular battle - apart from one in which he did not participate - claims a legendary slogan for his stone? And does it matter that the words were likely never spoken? Certainly they were not spoken as dying words, or even words uttered just prior to battle? Does it matter that Cambronne was not even with the Guard when it died, already having been taken prisoner by Colonel Hugh Halkett? That, in fact, Cambronne died in England as a prisoner of war? (cf. ‘ Cambronne’s Words ’)   Whatever words were or were not spoken, and we can’t really expect Edgar Lee Masters to do anything but accept the legend, the sentiment is obvious - Keene would have us believe that whatever struggles he engaged in are to be likened to the glorious defeat of the Guard ...

And so the final poem in the ‘Chase Henry Trilogy’. Chase Henry accepted his role as "town drunkard" and warned the Protestants, those "prudent and pious souls", of achieving, in a sense, the Devil's own goals for the sake of crossing the Catholics. Harry Carey Goodhue, in like manner to the Protestants, would have his legacy recognised as one thing while, in actual fact, leaving behind something else altogether different. And now we have Judge Somers, the "most erudite of lawyers" and maker of "the greatest speech / The court-house ever heard", lying in an unmarked grave, his life not having produced the rewards he thought it he deserved. Chase Henry recognises that he benefitted from the rivalry that exists between the Protestants and the Catholics but is not into thinking himself other than he really was. He is well aware that he "lived in shame" and his good fortune was not earned. In answer to Judge Somers' question, ...

There is nothing quite so noble as a man willing to put himself on the line for others or for a cause: Socrates willing to die for his beliefs, Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent movement for the independence of India, Dietrich Bonhoeffer consistently outspoken against the Nazis, Martin Luther King’s stand for civil rights. Such men stand as inspiration for the generations who come after them and an admonition to those of us not of their stature. Does Harry Carey Goodhue have a place among this pantheon of nobel men? He tells us that he fought the good fight, standing against the “bank and the courthouse ring” who would pocket the “interest on public funds”, the “leading citizens” who made “the poor the pack-horses of the taxes”, and the “water works” for “stealing streets and raising rates”. Certainly, these are fights in need of fighting! Somehow, though, we are left with the feeling that, despite his struggles, Goodhue fails to earn his place in history. There is just something not ...