The Towns’ Standards In “Spoon River Anthology” And “The House Of Bernarda Alba”

The topic that I have chosen for this essay compares the customs, community standards, values, and traditions that define the town of Spoon River and the nameless town in The House of Bernarda Alba. I chose this topic because it is important for the reader to understand the different characteristics that make up the towns’ and its people. In this analysis, I will answer the questions as to how the towns’ standards influenced the actions of the characters. It can be concluded by the reader that in the nameless town of The House of Bernarda Alba it is strictly and morally important for women to wait until marriage to have sex. This value influences how the characters deal with the issue of becoming pregnant out of wedlock.

In Spoon River Anthology it was common for characters to have a clean and respectful public life but a very different private life. This was because they wanted others to believe they had good moral values which made them appear respectable to Spoon River. An important town standard in The House of Bernarda Alba was the female expectations in marriage. Women were supposed to follow their husbands’ rules and not question his decisions. The first point that I need to discuss is in the nameless town of The House of Bernarda Alba. There is a strict view that the town imposes of women staying abstinent until marriage. The town is very traditional in their values and they expect everyone who is a part not of the town to follow them. If people do not follow them, as we see in the book, the town will cast them out of society or even attempt to kill the person. The residents of the town know the consequences of disobeying this rule, but still we find that characters have broken it. The reader first gets an insight of this on page 156. The Alba family learns that a girl in their town was so ashamed of having a child out of wedlock that she allegedly murdered her own baby. The town is chasing her down so they can kill her. Bernarda supports this act and believes that the girl should be put to death. This example shows us how traditional the town is with their stance on abstinence for women. A woman would choose to kill her own child rather than face condemnation for having sex sang getting pregnant out of wedlock.

Another point that emphasizes how the town’s standards influenced the actions of the characters is through the common characteristic for villagers to have a very different private life than public life. In Spoon River Anthology, we consistently see characters discuss how their appearance on the outside was much different than who they truly were on the inside. Their outside image was usually purer and more put together in order to give the image to the town that they were satisfied with their life. The characters wanted others to believe that they obeyed and encouraged all the traditional values that the town had. However, when we get a deeper look at their life we can comprehend that many of them were not nearly as put together as they publicly portrayed. An example of this is shown on page 68 by Deacon Taylor. Taylor tells us that he belonged to the church and the party of prohibition. The town thought he died from eating watermelon, but it was actually because he drank alcohol every day for thirty years and died of cirrhosis. Spoon River was a town that was debating if they should legalize alcohol in their town. Taylor, as a prohibitionist, was on the side that wanted to make Spoon River dry. He disobeyed his own ideology, but he wanted to keep the status and respect that he had in the town by his friends and family so he did not tell anyone that he drank alcohol. This example shows us how the town’s values influence the characters’ decisions. The characters are cautious of their public status and would rather keep things secret in order to feel respected in the town.

A third point that shows how the town’s standards influenced actions is shown in The House of Bernarda Alba with the female expectations in marriage. Women in this town were expected to be quiet and do what they are told by their husbands or other men in the community. Their opinions did not matter very much and their primary purpose was to bear children and take care of household affairs. An example of this is shown on pages 160 and 161. Bernarda asks Angustias about her fiancée, Pepe, and what he talks about to her. Angustias responds by saying that she does not believe he is very attentive to their conversations and that he does not discuss his problems with her. Bernarda responds by saying not to question him or pry into his personal life even if this at the expense of Angustias’s happiness. Bernarda even says that Anguistas should never cry in front of him. All the things that Angustias does should be for Pepe and she should never let emotion or personal matters get in the way. This passage reveals to us how the standard of being a woman in this town is to purely to serve your husband and family and not to have an identity of your own.