erinc09’s Blog

In the final pages of Spoon River Anthology I definitely noticed that they progressively turned more and more depressing. In the beginning there seemed to be some more uplifting or humorous poems, however many of these were about war or not living fulfilled lives. They talked about being unhappy with their lives and how they turned out.

One of the poems that stuck out to me was Lydia Humphrey’s. She talked about how she was never married or had any kids, so she was essentially alone in the world. She would go to church almost every day with her Bible, and she knew that everyone thought she was a little strange but she did it anyways. She did not care what they thought, because to her they didn’t matter. In one part Lydia says, “the church was sweet to me” (118), and I think it was brave of her to believe in something so much even though people thought she looked queer. The people in our society today are so concerned with how people view them that they will stop something they love if it means they won’t be judged anymore. It is refreshing to read about characters that don’t follow these rules. Although Lydia’s life seemed very lonely seeing that she did not have any family, she tried to fill up this empty space in her life with church and her beliefs.