Student Question
Who is William Goode in the Spoon River Anthology?
Quick answer:
William Goode is a unique character in the Spoon River Anthology. He is not from Spoon River, but he has strong connections to it. Although he was not born there, and does not live there anymore, he seems to have a special understanding of the place and its people. He compares his own life to that of bats who must fly around in circles to capture their food. William addresses this metaphor directly to anyone "in the deep woods near Miller's Ford," which suggests that he has spent some time there. In any case, his poem expresses his desire to travel as well as to belong, though sadly admits that belonging is sometimes beyond one's control.
The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters consists of 244 free-verse poems, almost all of which are couched in the form of epitaphs for members of the Spoon River community, each spoken by the dead person him or herself.
While many of the speakers in the Spoon River Anthology were plainly pillars of their small community, William Goode was something of an outsider, even a drifter. He begins by saying that he must have seemed aimless and directionless to his neighbors. However, he compares himself to the bats who have to fly in a zig-zag pattern to catch their food. Then he gives another more specific local reference: if you ever got lost "In the deep wood near Miller's Ford," then you must have experienced what it is like to dodge about this way and that, trying to find the path through the woods without much light. If you can relate to this experience, William says:
You should understand I sought the way
With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings
Were wanderings in the quest.
William may not have been intimately connected with other people in the Spoon River community, but his poem demonstrates a romantic (and even Romantic, Wordsworthian) connection to the landscape and the natural world as well as a good-natured acceptance of his position outside the mainstream of village life.
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