Spoon River Illinois Chapter Analysis

Spoon River Anthology
People Often Sleep With the Enemy
In Spoon River, Illinois, there is a hill where everyone who has past away is buried. This hill is the town cemetery. Many of the dead are connected in different ways. Whether they were husband and wife or they just impacted each others lives in a small way. Many of the dead believe they only have one life. In believing this, it hinders them because many do not find happiness in this life. But that doesn’t mean they can’t find happiness in the next. People often sleep with the enemy. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the enemies, this mean that they have no love for each other. Throughout the book there are many examples of people who are “sleeping with the enemy”.
One epitaph, entitled, Herbert Marshall, he leaves his wife because she was his misery. Hebert called off his engagement to Louise Smith for a woman named Annabelle. “All your sorrow, Louise, and hated of me sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights which made me turn to …show more content…
Charles Bliss talks about how she didn’t divorce her husband because of their children. “Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him for the sake of the children, and Judge Somers advised him the same.” The reverend and the judge both advised them not to divorce each other. “Tortured in soul because they could not admire equally him and me.” Their kids ended up hating the other parent. Some took the mother's side, while the others took the father's side. “Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls where there is no sunlight, but only twilight...” Raising children in a home where the parents hate each other will hurt the children. The children’s lives would have been better if their parents divorced, because they created a hostile environment which turned the children against each other. Moreover, Mrs. Charles Bliss was living with her “enemy”, her husband, either though they both hated each

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