Spoon River Anthology Analysis

In Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, each of the people from Fiddler Jones to Mrs. Reece all believed that they had one life to live. For certain people, this caused their lives to be better, as they didn’t want to spend it all in regret. For others, this belief caused them deep regret, and they felt as though they had wasted everything they had. They were too afraid to live, they never did. Expecting the unforeseen also played quite a bit in whether their life was good or bad. You can see this very clearly in Fiddler Jones, Franklin Jones and Nancy Knapp. Fiddler Jones is an example of how not expecting the unexpected can be helpful. Fiddler Jones played the fiddle all day, and loved his life. He spent his days wandering the countryside playing his fiddle without a care in the world, listening to the vibrations of the earth. Had Jones known of his fate, he most likely would’ve brought a stop to it and continue his days playing his fiddle and enjoying his life. He said multiple time that he enjoyed making people happy, he …show more content…
She did not expect the unforeseen, and it had mixed results. She and her husband inherited a large sum of money from an old relative, and used it to purchase a farm. Shortly after these events, she and her husband were accused by their families of poisoning the mind, and forcing him to give her husband the whole sum of the money. Nancy Knapp and her husband were completely miserable with what they had, ever since they got this unexpected hoard of money, it made their life worse. Nancy then decided that the best way to deal with this misery, was to get rid of the farm and the money forever. She says, “So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house went up in a roar of flame, as I danced in the yard with waving arms, while he wept like a freezing steer.” In this, it is apparent that she is happy with the outcome, but her husband is not. He sits and weeps near the burning