A Voice of Dystopia: Edgar Lee Masters and the Unmaking of Small Town America

The poetry of Edgar Lee Masters, specifically that of The Spoon River Anthology (1915), can be deemed a poetry of community. However, to leave the analysis of his work at this statement only superficially examines Masters inquiries into the mechanics and methods of rural and small town life. Therefore, through a deeper analysis and examination of the techniques of Masters' rhetorical structure, form and his treatment of subject matter, the conventional world view of such rural populations is overturned. Masters' work is still a poetry of community, but one of the sordid and unpopular dimensions of the relationships and inner workings of small towns.

Perhaps the most important element of Masters' indictment of small town life is that of rhetorical means. Masters uses the diction of his poems to instill and inspire a degree of uncertainty and unrest. In the poem “Trainor, the Druggist,” Masters writes, in regards to the outcome of an interaction that “only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist, / what will result from compounding / fluids or solids” (5). Masters' rhetorical structure contradicts itself; Trainor, a chemist, is expected to know the end product of the interaction. However, the poet's character, Trainor, claims that the even the assumed expert may “not always” know the result of any situation or interaction. The by product of such a nullification is uncertainty, the same indecision that Masters hopes to plant in his reader, redirecting their stereotypical understanding of small town life to be solid and static. The poem further produces a sense of the improper and contradictory as Masters defines Benjamin Pantier as “oxygen” and his wife as “hydrogen,” (5) two elements that, when brought together, are volatile dangerous; they are opposites in stability. By supplying the reader with the binary opposites present in “Trainor, the Druggist,” Masters aspires to deconstruct the common body of mythos referring to small town concepts. A further example of Masters' use of diction to evoke a doubtfulness, in regards to small town society, occurs in the poem “Sexsmith, the Dentist.” The text of Masters' poem contains a number of questions of both a broad and narrow nature to define a  global sense of uncertainty to inspire the reader to apply this broadly-derived dubiety on a local scale, further enhancing the poet's message of uncertainty. Masters speaker asks,

do you think that odes and sermons,
and the ringing of church bells,
...
accomplished the great reformation? (8)

This series of queries directed toward the reader begin to plant the seeds of doubt in the reader;he questions the current establishment of religion, asking the reader to ask themselves if they believe that the passive items such as “odes” and “sermons” made the drastic religious changes

of the reformation. Masters uses the basis provided by this and other instances of questioning tobring about a narrower, more local, poem-specific brand of indecision when he writes

do you think that Daisy Fraiser
had been put out and driven out
if the canning works had never needed
her little house and lot? (8)

In the small town frame of reference, conventional thinking would not include industry and the aggressive expansion of the commercial agenda in the standard, stereotypical assessment of forces prevailing rural settings. However, as Masters writes, the character of Daisy Fraiser is “put out” and “driven out” by the capitalist machine represented by the “canning works.” The mere presence of industry in a rural setting accomplishes Masters' goal; one conjures a conventional image of the small town, one of an easy-going laid back community not agressively trying to “put out” or “drive out” its members, much less aid factories in doing so. The juxtaposition of two seemingly distant objects produces the same kind of nullification as Masters' contradictory construction “Trainor, the Druggist.” By creating an intricate framework of reference, Masters' rhetorical style creates a picture of small town community and society that undermines the typical norms defining the wholesome nature of the rural town.

Masters also employs a modern form to reinforce the uncertainty and undermining efforts previously described. In “Trainor, the Druggist,” Masters uses free verse stitchic form in a thirteen line piece that also disregards rhyme, conventional rhythm and any type of symmetrical structure. The longest of his lines runs ten words, and the shortest is three, however there is no technical correlation of form holding the piece together. Written around 1915, the poem no doubt is utilizing a modern form, one that reflects the uncertainty and rebellious efforts of the literary modernists. Using this unbalanced and uneven form to write the poem, Masters frames a stereotypical, tradition-oriented subject in an uncertain modern light. Without discussing Masters' treatment of subject matter, an analysis of the form alone brings his purpose to the fore; Masters' adept use of a controversial form enhances the undermining process of the stereotypical town image. Again in “Sexsmith, the Dentist,” using the same criteria as above, the poem accomplishes the same goal. It is a twenty-five line piece that, again, does not contain any rhyme, conventional rhythm or symmetrical construction. The poem, then, moves toward Masters' end of destroying and destabilizing the American view of the rural population. Reflecting a global movement of uncertainty and doubt, Masters' applies this world-view to something seemingly unaffected by the moral turmoil of the outside world. In essence, one would expect that these towns were disconnected, and not modern, thus Masters is using his knowledge of the modern form to further accomplish his goal of undermining convention regarding small town life.

The final method by which Masters instills a sense of the uncertain in his poetry about rural life is that of his treatment of subject matter. While the more contemporary notion of America regarding a small town has been that private lives are, in fact, everyone's business. However, it is perhaps Masters' scathing portrayal of small town life that caused such an attitude to emerge. It is obvious is “Trainor, the Druggist” that private lives are being brought public; in the piece the speaker discusses the relationship of the Pantiers as being a mixture of “hydrogen” and “oxygen” and “good in themselves, but evil toward each other” (5). Bringing these speculations public accomplishes a number of tasks. Being that Masters used the memories of actual persons to construct his somewhat fictional account, there is some truth to the accusations presented. This truth, no doubt, adds a credibility to his poems, establishing a more substantial place from which his speakers can effect the uncertainty of the pieces. The poem also undercuts the conventional perception that “country folk” maintain perfect lives and perfect relationships. Traditional perceptions of country populations goes through some reinterpretation in the poem, addling the popular conventions regarding small town life adding a dimension of dubiety to the emerging perceptions. In “Sexsmith, the Dentist” multiple private histories are brought to the public fore. The most troubling of these histories, however, is that of Masters' accusations about Johnnie Taylor and Burchard's bar. Masters writes

or do you think the poker room
of Johnnie Taylor, and Burchard's Bar
had been closed up if the money lost
and spent for beer had not been turned,
by closing them, to Thomas Rhodes
for larger sales of shoes and blankets,
and children's cloaks and gold-oak cradles? (8)

Masters again calls into question the popular conventions regarding small town life. The prohibition movement, though maintaining prominence in the 1920s, is portrayed here by Thomas Rhodes forcibly closing the poker room and bar in town in order to procure their monies to further his trade of blankets and the like. Masters, again using somewhat truthful histories, shows that economic morality is somewhat questionable in small towns, whereas the predominating sentiment of the time regarding small towns would have claimed that residents of such rural settlements were honest and giving, in essence stores of value and principle. Thomas Rhodes is portrayed as merely having taken what was rightfully Burchard's and Taylor's. Masters' speaker later confirms this moral judgment when he writes that “a moral truth is a hollow tooth / which must be propped with gold” (8) alluding to the complex cover-up operation of which metaphoric town “dentist” could take care. Masters finishes the poem on an inconclusive and uncertain note indicting even the small town medical practitioner of ethical corruption, reinforcing his undermining efforts against the conventional perception of small town values and principles.

Thus, through the examination of Masters' rhetorical structure, poetic form and treatment of subject matter, the two poems of The Spoon River Anthology analyzed in this critical assessment show a marked determination toward undermining and reinventing the array of popular notions regarding small town life. Rooted in some real fact, Masters portrayal also sparked uncertainty and doubt in the various small towns from which he borrowed personal and public histories. Thus, aiming his purpose at doing so, Masters' poetry completes his ends through the means presented.

--Work Cited--

Masters, Edgar L. Illinois Voices: an Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry. Ed. Kevin Stein and G E. Murray. Urbana: University of Illinois P, 2001. 4-12.