Today,
we read "Mrs. Charles Bliss" by Edgar Lee Masters. Read now the
epitaph of Reverend Wiley. Compare their views and tones. (The deadline to post a response to this blog is midnight, Wednesday, November 19, 2014.)
Rev. Lemuel Wiley
I preached four thousand sermons,
I conducted forty revivals,
And baptized many converts.
Yet no deed of mine
Shines brighter in the memory of the world,
And none is treasured more by me:
Look how I saved the Blisses from divorce.
And kept the children free from that disgrace,
To grow up into moral men and women,
Happy themselves-- a credit to the village.
Edgar Lee Masters
5 comments:
Mrs. Bliss is bitter about not being about to divorce her husband and ruining the lives of her children. The Reverand, however, is content with his decision and believes he did the right thing and actually helped the children.
Mrs. Bliss raised her children in a way that caused them to pay for her suffering. As for the Reverand he believed his children were raised the right way. Kylee Roberts
Mrs. Bliss' poem is bitter because she believes that the marriage is a negative influence on her and her children. In the Reverend's poem, the tone is content. The Reverend believes that he has saved the children from growing up in a life of despair and sorrow, but in reality he has done the opposite.
Jacki McDunnah
Mrs. Bliss is bitter because she thinks the one thing that truly made her unhappy is taking the advice of the Reverend and the judge instead of leaving her husband. The Reverend is confident, and somewhat smug, in his decision to tell Mrs. Bliss to not divorce her husband. He truly believes he has saved Mrs. Bliss and her children from a life of unhappiness.
Rev. Lemuel Willey's tone shows that he is pleased about keeping the Blisses together and believes that he did the best thing for the Bliss children, but according to Mrs. Bliss's bitter tone he did not solve the problem but made it worse because now the children have to constantly pick a side and are torn between their parents.
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