Spoon River Essay, Research Paper

Spoon River

Thomas Rhodes talks about how the people in Spoon River could have prevented their hard times. He compared people in Spoon River to navigators and sailors because they found with all their boasted wisdom how hard at the last it is to keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms. He also says that seekers of earth’s treasures are self-contained and harmonized even to the end. In this poem you are not told what Thomas does for a living, but it is implied that Thomas is a bank owner or has something to do with the bank because people are always worrying about paying him on time. There are no historical or literary allusions in this poem. There are also no similes in this poem. There are, however, a couple of metaphors in this poem. They are found in the lines: “…you liberals and navigators into realms intellectual, you sailors through heights imaginative, blown about by erratic currents tumbling into air pockets, you Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits, and Tennessee Claflin Shopes, you found… how hard at the last it is to keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms.” The quotes are metaphors of the people who are always changing their minds because of what other people say and end up doing something they regret so badly, they begin to fall apart emotionally and financially. “While we seekers of earth’s treasure, getters and hoarders of gold are self-contained, compact and harmonized.” That quote is a metaphor for people who are always trying to find news ways to make more money and those who don’t like to spend their money. They are cool, calm, and always prepared for a rainy day. This poem has no rhyming or rhythmic words. It tells how Thomas Rhodes feels about money. The poem is the exact way Thomas would talk if he was alive today. What drew me to this poem was the fact that Rhodes knows that other people affect your way of life more than any other force imaginable. If one gets suppressed by this pressure to conform, the results are so devastating, they’re lives not only change for the worst but fall into the unrecoverable depth of oblivion.