Spoon River Anthology

Spoon River Anthology Character Project

1. Choose one character from the Anthology to present to the class. A few of the lives are interrelated; therefore, some of you may want to work together for a more effective revelation of you character’s life. Choose from this list:

Hod Putt (3) George Gray (65) Ollie McGee (4) Dora Williams (71) Fletcher McGee (5) Mrs. Williams (72) Constance Hately (10) Petit the Poet (87) Chase Henry (11) Mrs. Charles Bliss (89) Judge Somers (13) Rev. Wiley (91) Benjamin Pantier (15) Judge Selah Lively (95) Mrs. Benjamin Pantier (16) Albert Schirding (96) Reuben Pantier (17) Jonas Keene (97) Emily Sparks (18) Thomas Rhodes (105) Trainor the Druggist (19) Ida Chicken (106) Minerva Jones (22) Ralph Rhodes (132) Doctor Meyers (24) Roscoe Purkapile (136) Mrs. Meyers (25) Mrs. Purkapile (137) “Butch” Weldy (26) Walter Simmons (147) Knowlt Hoheimer (27) Searcy Foote (150) Richard Bone (170) Lydia Puckett (28) Shack Dye (175) Johnnie Sayre (38) Archibald Higbie (184) Charlie French (39) Elizabeth Childers (188) The Town Marshall (42) Anne Rutledge (207) Jack McGuire (43) Hannah Armstrong (215) Lois Spears (52) Lucinda Matlock (216) Deacon Taylor (58) Fiddler Jones (61)

2. Present the character to the class by reading the selection as you feel the character would. Then discuss the character with the class. Show the character’s attitude toward his life and the small town of Spoon River as well as what specifics are behind those feelings. What truths and/or secrets are revealed? Feel free to cover these points by asking the class questions you have prepared and/or the ones on the study guide. You should use the front of the classroom to make your presentation. NOTE: This is the BASIC assignment. The highest grade for this will be a 78 C. 3. For a higher grade include one or a combination of the following (this will make you eligible for a high score; quality counts, neatness and organization do too.)

a. costumes b. props c. music d. drawings, pictures, etc. e. photographs, slides, etc. f. SEE ME ABOUT OTHER IDEAS THAT YOU MAY HAVE.

4. SIGN UP DATE: ______

5. See me if you have any questions or need any help at all—whether it is deciding on a character or after you have decided. Directions: Write out the answers to the following questions when called upon to do so. Read through these and be able to answer them. Make sure you support your ideas with specific examples from the different poems. Be able to explain the effect of Spoon River on all the characters. Note also what the characters reveal not only about themselves but about Spoon River and other people as well. You should also use these questions as a guide for your presentation to the class on your character.

HOD PUTT 1. Who is Bill Piersol? 2. What prompted the robbery? 3. What were the results of the robbery? 4. Explain the way Hod Putt went into “bankruptcy.”

OLLIE MCGEE and FLETCHER MCGEE 1. Find and explain the analogy. 2. Give Ollie’s side of the story. 3. Do the same for Fletcher. 4. What do you think is the “secret cruelty” that Fletcher inflicted upon Ollie? 5. What kind of thoughts on the part of Fletcher could have molded an Ollie that he describes?

CONSTANCE HATELY 1. Why did Spoon River praise her? 2. What is Spoon River’s attitude toward Irene and Mary? Explain 3. What does she tell Spoon River to do? Why?

CHASE HENRY 1. Why is it good fortune Chase is denied burial in holy ground? 2. Who buries his body? 3. What character that we read is he buried near? 4. Explain the irony.

JUDGE SOMERS 1. Define “erudite”. 2. Identify Blackstone and Coke. (see an encyclopedia) 3. How does he describe himself? 4. Define irony. 5. Explain the irony.

BENJAMIN PANTIER 1. Who is Benjamin’s best friend? 2. Who is “she” in the poem? 3. What does he accuse her of doing? 4. What was he like at the end of his life? MRS. BENJAMIN PANTIER 1. What does she think of her husband? 2. What does she think of marriage? 3. What is Wordsworth’s “Ode”? 4. What is the allusion in line 10? 5. Why do these represent husband and wife? 6. Why does she drive him out of the house?

REUBEN PANTIER 1. Who is Emily Sparks? 2. Who is the milliner’s daughter? 3. Why does Reuben begin to cry? 4. What is a “cocotte”? 5. What does the cocotte think the tears are for? 6. Explain line 7.

EMILY SPARKS 1. What is the relationship between Emily Sparks and Reuben Pantier? 2. What does her name suggest about her personality? Explain. 3. What main point is she making?

TRAINOR THE DRUGGIST 1. Explain the analogy. 2. What lesson did he seem to learn? 3. Is there anything ironical in what he reveals? Explain.

MINERVA JONES 1. How is Minerva treated by the town “Yahoos”? 2. What does “Butch” Weldy do to her? 3. What fate befalls her with Doctor Meyers?

DOCTOR MEYERS 1. What does Doctor Meyers think of his contribution to Spoon River? 2. What does he think of his life in general? 3. What does he claim he tried to do for Minerva? 4. What was the town’s reaction to this?

MRS. MEYERS 1. How does Mrs. Meyers reiterate what Doctor Meyers says? 2. What does she think of what he did? 3. What did Doctor Meyers do? “ BUTCH” WELDY 1. What happens to “Butch”? 2. What is his major injury? 3. What does the Circuit Judge say? 4. What do the last three lines mean?

KNOWLT HOHEIMER and LYDIA PUCKETT 1. Give her side of the story. 2. Give his side of the story. 3. What do the words “Pro Patria” mean? 4. What point in the two stories is contradicted? 5. Whose story is to be believed? WHY?????

JOHNNIE SAYRE 1. What was his first disobedience? 2. How did he feel about his disobedience? 3. Explain the last line.

CHARLIE FRENCH 1. What celebration is he referring to? 2. What spoiled his celebration? 3. What is “lock-jaw”?

THE TOWN MARSHAL 1. Why was he made the town marshal? 2. What is Prohibition? 3. What is meant by a “loaded cane”? See also the sketch about Jack McGuire. 4. Explain the lines 13-16. 5. How does he mean it when he says, “Fourteen years were enough for killing me”? Explain.

JACK MCGUIRE 1. What was the crime he committed? 2. Why wasn’t he hanged? 3. Explain the bargain. 4. What does his story reveal about Spoon River?

LOIS SPEARS 1. Describe her. What is her handicap and how does she deal with it? 2. Why is line 6 in parenthesis? 3. What is the point she is making? 4. Considering the characters covered so far, which one is Lois Spears most like? Explain. 5. Can you think of any famous handicapped people who have overcome their handicap and risen to great heights? Name and discuss them. DEACON TAYLOR 1. What does “Spiritus frumenti” mean? 2. What is the irony here?

FIDDLER JONES 1. What was his main interest in life? 2. How would he describe his life? Explain. 3. What kind of farmer was he? Support you answer with specifics. 4. How did he contribute to the life of the community? 5. Do you admire or disapprove of Fiddler Jones? Explain.

GEORGE GRAY 1. Explain what George Gray’s name suggests about his personality. 2. Define analogy. Also, explain how the term differs from metaphor, simile, and conceit. 3. Explain the analogy in the poem. 4. In a nutshell, what was Gray’s opinion of the life he lived? 5. Specifically, what was Gray’s problem?

DORA WILLIAMS 1. Describe her lifestyle. 2. What effect might her mother have had on her? 3. What was it that made her leave Spoon River? 4. What is suggested by her seeing “a purple face for years”? 5. How did she die? 6. Why is her death ironic? 7. Explain what was chiseled for her.

MRS. WILLIAMS 1. Describe her. 2. What is a milliner? 3. What is her advise? 4. What is her question? 5. How would she have answered the question? 6. How would Spoon River have answered it? Explain.

PETIT THE POET 1. What does the name reveal about the character? 2. What do the seeds in the dry pod represent? 3. What are triolets, villanelles, etc.? 4. What does Petit think of himself as a poet? 5. What does it mean when Petit noted that “Homer and Whitman roared in the pines”? 6. What is “The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;/ And what is love but a rose that fades?”? 7. Explain what is meant by the loom and patterns. MRS. CHARLES BLISS and REV. WILEY 1. What was Rev. Wiley’s advice? 2. What was the problem? 3. What was the effect of the advice? 4. What would each of the characters say about the lives they led—before and after the advice? Why? 5. Explain the analogy in the Mrs. Charles Bliss poem.

JUDGE SELAH LIVELY 1. Explain the problems he had in becoming attorney at law. 2. What helped him become Rhodes’ attorney? 3. How was he treated? 4. What personal characteristic did he seem sensitive about? Was he justified? 5. Answer the question that he poses at the end. Explain it.

ALBERT SCHIRDING and JONAS KEENE 1. What was Schirding’s problem? 2. What was Keene’s problem? Note the contrast. 3. Note the irony in the two sketches. 4. Answer the question that Keene asks of Schirding. 5. How did Keene die? 6. Which parent type seems more realistic to you? WHY????

THOMAS RHODES 1. Read Tennessee Claftin Shopes. Who is Mary Baker G. Eddy? (use some research) 2. Why does Thomas think people like Tennessee are wrong? 3. What does he think of the way he lived his life?

IDA CHICKEN 1. What does she mean by “Chautauqua”? 2. What is she upset about? 3. What aspect is revealed about the community of Spoon River?

RALPH RHODES 1. Who is his father? 2. Who is George Reese? (hint: read Mrs. George Reese) 3. What kind of life does he live in New York? 4. What happens at the end of the poem?

ROSCOE PURKAPILE and MRS. PURKAPILE 1. Give his account. 2. Exactly what does Roscoe mean when he says his marriage was “a divine dispensation”? 3. What was the real reason Mrs. Purkapile kept the marriage together? WALTER SIMMONS 1. What is the main contrast in Simmons and Archibald Higbie? 2. What was Spoon River’s opinion of Simmons? 3. Did Simmons amount to much in his own eyes? Spoon River’s eyes? Your eyes? 4. What reason would Spoon River give for his not making a mark in the world? 5. What reason does Higbie give?

SEARCY FOOTE 1. Who or what is Proudhon? Of what significance is it to the character’s actions. 2. How did Aunt Persis die? 3. Why was she killed? 4. Who killed her? 5. What became of Searcy? 6. Explain the last line.

RICHARD BONE 1. Exactly how did he respond to his earlier jobs as epitaph maker in Spoon River? 2. What accounts for his change in attitude for what he chiseled? 3. What does he reveal about himself? Explain. 4. What does he reveal about Spoon River? Explain.

SHACK DYE 1. How was he treated in Spoon River? 2. Why was he treated that way? 3. What is his opinion of the white men in Spoon River? 4. Explain the last few lines.

ARCHIBALD HIGBIE 1. Why does he say he loathes Spoon River? 2. Why is he ashamed of Spoon River? 3. What was his ambition? 4. Was he successful? Explain. 5. Explain “it has a trace of Lincoln.” 6. Whom or what does Higbie blame?

ELIZABETH CHILDERS 1. What happened to her child? 2. What is her attitude toward this (#1)? 3. Account for her attitude. 4. What questions do you have about this? ANNE RUTLEDGE 1. Identify her (do some research). Give specifics that apply to the poem and any interesting information that you find. 2. Where does line 3 come from? 3. What point is she making? What part does she seem to suggest that she played in Lincoln’s career?

HANNAH ARMSTRONG 1. Identify her (do some research). 2. Discuss three important personal characteristics that are revealed. 3. Not only is her personality revealed, but we also learn something about another figure. Who is that well-known figure? 4. What is learned about that figure? Explain and cite lines.

LUCINDA MATLOCK 1. Describe Lucinda Matlock’s life. 2. What is it that Lucinda Matlock doesn’t understand (What is it that she questions)? 3. Does she have any reason for feeling sad and down? Explain. 4. What is her comment regarding what she doesn’t understand (see #2)? Do you agree with her? Explain your answer.