The Individuals of Spoon River Anthology

 

            By 1914, authors of American Literature felt another shift, this time driven, in part, by the disruption and devastation of World War 1, as well as the rapid technological advances that were taking place all around them, including the rise of mass media and popular culture. As more and more people became disillusioned with the world, the country, traditional values, lifestyles, and societal expectations, literary authors strove to capture this now fragmented reality. One of the most influential poets of the American Modernist Age was Edgar Lee Masters, and his published work, “Spoon River Anthology,” which can be pursued in its entirety through Project Gutenberg, beautifully and masterfully captures the sprit of modernism. The Spoon River Anthology is a collection of over 200 interconnected poems, each featuring a deceased individual resident of Spoon River, and each poem, though fractured from the whole, plays a key part in the overall story and connection of the town itself. Masters uses this anthology of the fictional Spoon River to shed a harsh light on the social disillusionment of the time; by using these character’s individual perspectives and voices he focuses on the ordinary lives and experiences of average people to challenge the social norms and values of the time by highlighting the hypocrisy and moral decay of the town, and connecting this with the fragmented and cynical view of humanity that many people felt at this time.

            In “Minerva Jones” for example, we are introduced to the town poet, one who is often bullied and “jeered at” by the villagers (Line 2). She explains that this ridicule only increased “when ‘Butch’ Weldy - Captured me (Minerva) after a brutal hunt.” And while it is not explicitly stated, if the definitions and some of the etymology of the words chosen by Masters to explain this incident are examined, it becomes clear that she was raped, and became pregnant by “Butch.” As provided through Merriam-Webster, captured can be defined as “the act of catching, winning, or gaining control by force, stratagem, or guile” and its etymology explains that it is derived from the Latin “captus” or captive, which can be defined as “being taken or held involuntarily because of a situation that makes free choice or departure difficult.” While brutal can be defined as “having or showing the nature and appetites of a lower animal.” Minerva then explains that she was left to her fate with the town doctor, Dr. Meyers, where she slowly died. But her death does not stop the longing in her heart, as she begs for someone to gather all her poems into a book, desperate to have her words stand the test of time.

            But “Doctor Meyers” also speaks from his grave, shedding another layer of light upon Minerva’s story, and the town, by telling his own. He explains that he was a wealthy, respected doctor that “Did more for people in this town” than any other, besides, possibly, Doctor Hill (Line 2). He explains that he lived a happy and productive life, that he was “good-hearted,” and when Minerva “came to me (Doctor Meyers) in her trouble, crying” his only intentions were to help her, but instead she died. He goes on to say that he was charged for her death, and “disgraced” in the newspapers, before he died of pneumonia (line 5; 10). Here Meyers provides more insight into the incident involving Minerva, explaining that she sought him out for help, and though he attempted to help her, he failed. With her death he also lost his prestige within the village, as all the villagers blamed him for the incident.

            “Butch” Weldy also has his say from the grave, though he makes no mention of Minerva Jones. Instead, his epitaph is rather self-indulgent, explaining that he found religion, “steadied down,” and got a job at a canning factory (line 1). He focuses on the injuries he received in an explosion that occurred while he was refilling the gas tanks at the canning factory, that left him blind with two broken legs. When he went to court over the accident the judge ruled that, since the accident was caused by a fellow employee, identified as Old Rhodes’ son, they didn’t have to pay him at all. He is more focused on his personal hardships than the ones he wrought upon Minerva. While his tale seems to play no significant role in Minerva and Doctor Meyer’s stories, it does play a larger role in the overall story of the town, providing insight into Rhodes’ son as well as Jack the Fiddler, referenced in the last two lines of the poem.

            Another glimpse of the village comes through “Margaret Fuller Slack,” an aspiring female writer, who was wooed by the “rich druggist” with the “promise of leisure for my novel (lines 8; 9),” for whom she birthed 8 children. She explains that motherhood left her with no time to write, and she passed away due to lockjaw caused by a needle stab while washing clothes. She comments on the irony of her own passing, dying while laboring instead of writing in leisure as her husband had promised. But it is her final line that, I feel, speaks the most to her perspective and hopes and dreams, as she claims, “Sex is the curse of life.” It highlights the disillusionment and bitterness she felt at the social expectations that were thrust upon her, that derailed the life path she truly desired.

            For “Nellie Clark,” unfortunately, the village and life treated her no better. She begins by explaining that she was raped at the age of 8 by Charlie, a 15-year-old boy from the village. She told her mother, and her father attempted to kill the Charlie, but Charlie’s mother protected him. Although she was the victim in this situation, she explains that “the story clung” to her the rest of her life (line 8). When a widower moved to Spoon River later in her life, they fell in love and got married, though he was unaware of her past tragedy. When he learns of it two years after their marriage, “he considered himself cheated” and left her after the town agreed that she had not been a virgin (line 12). Though her words do not convey what took her life, she explains that she died the following winter, and it is not hard to infer that she may have taken her own life. For Nellie, too, was disillusioned with her role in life, held to impossible standards, and ridiculed for circumstances beyond her control. Nellie’s story, while not directly connected to the other women from Spoon River highlighted here, adds another layer of connection within this disillusionment, helping to tie the women of the town together through their mutual hardships.

            This disillusionment is also seen through the words of “Abel Melveny” in the beginning he explains that he “bought every machine that’s known,” and that every one of them were left out in the elements, “getting rusted, warped, and battered (lines 1; 5).” He explains that he bought all the tools for essentially no reason, as he had nowhere to store them and no use for the majority. He compares himself to these tools and to the mill, explaining that in his final hours he realized that he was much like the machines he had purchased, ready and able to do the work, and yet never once actually being used.

            Interwoven throughout over 200 poems, Edgar Lee Masters beautifully captures the spirit of disillusionment and fragmentation felt by many during the rise of modernism. He uses these unique and disjointed accounts to cast a harsh light upon this non-existent town, revealing the dark undertow, by exposing the loss of innocence, the hypocrisy, and the broken dreams that still resonate today. He not only uses these individual secrets from the grave to critique social norms and values, to highlight the human condition, the fragmentation of society, and the disillusionment of the world, but he does so in a way that also highlights the interconnectedness of not just this town, but the world.

 

Works Cited:

Masters, E. L. (2024, October 29). Spoon river anthology. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1280/pg1280-images.html#chapJ05