erinc09’s Blog

In a town like Spoon River where things seem to move a lot slower than in a bustling city it can be easy to be sucked into a strict routine. Since there is not as much chaos or spontaneity there is not a lot that can switch up your schedule or provide more exciting opportunities. On page 59 I came across a character that seemed to be a victim of this problem. His name was Eugene Carman. His life story was that all he did for over twenty years was work in a store for 14 hours a day and for 313 days a year “saying ‘yes’m’ and ‘yes, sir’ and ‘thank you’ a thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.” (59). Then one day while getting ready for work he sees himself in the mirror and the only thing he notices is his gray hair and old face. It’s sad that he didn’t realize how he had wasted his life on one single routine until he was so old, and to the point where it was too late to change the course of his life. He was stuck in this town and in this pattern. It is no wonder to me why the character Archibald Higbie (on page 90) loathed Spoon River so much. He felt like it didn’t have enough culture for him to learn from and stopped him from developing a greater sense of the world.

When I came across “Mrs. Charles Bliss” I anticipated a much different woman than the one given. The word ‘bliss’ means peaceful and being content with oneself. However, she was the complete opposite which is kind of ironic. She wanted to get a divorce from her husband but she was not advised to, so she stuck out her marriage even though she was unhappy. Two of her children sided with her while theo ther two sided with her husband. Coming from a family with divorced parents I can definitely see how some children tend to feel more sympathy for one parent. I think had I been one of Mrs. Charles Bliss’ children I would have grieved more for her. She understood that it was better to raise your children in an environment not quite so polluted with anger and resentment between the parents. The people who advised her not to divorce her husband immediately thought that it would automatically be better for the children if they had two parents together, but I disagree with them. I think Mrs. Charles Bliss knew much better. The part where she said, “Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak” was very powerful.

For this section I chose to write about Cooney Potter’s poem. It starts out saying how he had inherited 40 acres from his father, and by having him and his family work hard he made it to 1000 acres. However, he ended up wanting more and more. Nothing seemed good enough.  After earning 1000 acres he wanted 2000. For years he worked his family and denied them a more relaxed lifestyle. He finally died when he was sixty.

Cooney Potter’s dilemma of always wanting more reminds me of a common American trait. Throughout the years, and in our society today, it seems as if Americans are never satisfied with what they have. They constantly strive for more, and they will not settle for mediocre. Whether it has to do with money or land Americans have always, and will always, push the hardest they can to get what they want. Often it appears that they strive for better because they want to live the American dream of success, and once they achieve that success their reputations go up. However, many do not know when to settle down. Cooney Potter is a perfect example.

While reading the first part of Spoon River Anthology there were a lot of poems that I saw that I could write about, but the one I liked the most was one called “Indignation” Jones. He starts it out by saying that you would never know that he was actually an educated man, and someone who came from good blood because all people do is judge by looks. “You saw me only as a run-down man, with matted hair and beard and ragged clothes. Sometimes a man’s life turns into a cancer, from being bruised and continually bruised…so I crept, crept like a snail through the days of my life.” (11). I think I had the most sympathy for “Indignation” Jones of all the people mentioned in these pages. He didn’t seem to do anything to deserve the disrespect and pain he constantly felt from the community. He led a lonely life because people judged him before they even knew him. The fact that he knew that he was just as educated as them but didn’t brag or continue to remind them shows his pride.

At the time that this book was written it was not unusual for a husband to beat his wife to show power. A wife was just something that men seemed to have so that they could have control over something. I was very surprised when in the beginning of chapter 17 Tea Cake depicted this kind of husband, because I thought that he had different beliefs.

“Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession. No brutal beatnig at all. He just slapper her around a bit to show he was boss. It aroused a sort of envy in both men and women.” (145)

The fact that Tea Cake is about twelve years younger than Janie makes it even harder for me to believe that she would allow this sort of behavior from him. I would have thought that she learned she needs to be the one in control with her relationships. With Joe he had all the power, and we all saw how that turned out. It seems almost pathetic for her to cling onto Tea Cake; I would have expected her to hit him back but she took the whippings instead. She is probably afraid that if she tries to fight back he will leave her, and everyone will  say “I told you so.”

When Tea Cake and Janie moved they met a lot of new people, one being Mrs. Turner. She had a fascination with white people and hated the black culture/race. Janie appealed to her because of her light skin and long hair, but she hated Tea Cake because his skin was so black. Mrs.Turner looked down on anyone who was black and talked about how she disapproved of their loud behavior.

“Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attan her paradise–a heave of straighthaired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs” “She paid homage to janie’s Caucasian chracteristics as such. And when she was with Janie she had a feeling of transmutation, as if she haerself had become whiter.”

Both of these quotes appear on page 145. Mrs. Turner is so obsessed with the white culture, and it is almost tragic because she will never be able to attain her dream of being white. No matter how hard you try to change you can’t always rid yourself of your background. Her race is something that will always be with her, and her choice to look down upon it has isolated her from the people of the town. She makes it very clear that she does not want to socialize with the rest of the black community, however this doesn’t make her the most popular person in town.

At this point in the book we are really able to see Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship developing. To Janie, the age issue seemed like a problem at first, but when she saw how much fun she had with Tea Cake it didn’t seem like a big deal. He actually wanted to have fun with her, and that is something that she did not experience with Joe. For the first time in a long time she was having a really good time.

“It was so crazy digging worms by lamp light and seeting out for Lake Sabelia after midnight that she felt like a child breaking rules. That’s what made Janie like it. They caught two or three and got home just before day. Then she had to smuggle Tea Cake out by the back gate and that made it seem like some great secret she was keeping from the town.” (102)

In the quote above Janie mentioned how she felt like a child, and how that is what made her like the experience so much. Now that I think about it Janie’s childhood was cut off so short. She was forced to marry at such a young age, and she was never able to finish having fun as a child. Her marriage forced her to grow up before she was ready. I think that is probably why she enjoys this relationship so much, because she is able to act like the kid that she never got to be.

In one of the earlier chapters when Janie embarrassed Jody in front of his friends something completely changed inside of him. After that comment he became completely transformed, and he was never quite the same. It got to so bad that he became physically ill, and in chapters 8-10 he unfortunately died. Although Janie felt guilty and had pity for him, she felt this new sense of freedom. For the past twenty years she had to hold herself back from being the “real” Janie; she had to fit the image of what the mayor’s wife should be. However, with Jody gone she let her hair down and did whatever she wanted.

On page 95 a man named Tea Cake/Vergible Woods comes into the store while Janie is working. Everyone else is at a game, so the store is completely empty besides the two of them. When he asks her to play a game of checkers she replies that she doesn’t know how, so he decides to show her. “He set it up and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice.” Finally Janie is being respected and treated like a normal person, instead of just being pushed off to the side and being called a woman. After twenty years of neglect from her husband she is finally starting to feel more appreciated. It seems as if she is finally interested in someone since Joe died. However, in the first chapter before Janie goes into her flashback she mentions to her friend that Tea Cake was gone and left her, so it makes me wonder what might cause this to happen..

Throughout the book women are constantly depicted as people who are only good for cooking and taking care of the children. The time period of this novel can definitely be felt because of the way the comments made by the characters. For example, on page 71 Joe is talking to Janie and he makes some strong remarks: “Dat’s ’cause you need tellin’. It would be pitiful if Ah didn’t. Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves.” He then goes on to say that women don’t know anything, they just think that they do but they really have no idea how to understand anything. The fact that he is saying this to his wife is so ridiculous, and it sounds especially wrong to me since I have grown up in a society where women are being more and more respected each year. Joe could not be anymore degrading if he tried. He actually compares women to chickens and cows, but Janie has definitely proved that she is much smarter than that. However Joe seems too ignorant to realize this. I hope that Janie makes attempts in the future to either prove him wrong or leave him, because clearly he is not respecting her needs.