“There is no marriage in heaven,
But there is love.”
The last two lines of the third poem of the anthology ostensibly refer to the situation of the poem’s speaker, a woman in love with two men. On closer look however, this quote is important for all poems.
The fact that marriage does not exist in heaven implies that marriage is an earthly construct of no importance in or for the afterlife. The adulterous Sarah Brown looks down from heaven as well as the unloved Minerva Jones. In the first poem, “The Hill”, the speaker makes no difference between the various dead from the village; whether their life was virtuous or not is ultimately unimportant.
This is in stark contrast to the typical village morality that is also prevalent in Spoon River. Marriage is of great importance and there is no leeway in what constitutes a marriage (a non-terminable union between two people). Both titular characters of “Sarah Brown” and “Mrs. Charles Bliss” are trapped in and restricted by marriage, even though they could easily achieve happiness without it and the titular character of “Herbert Marshall” is vilified by his refusal to stay in an unhappy marriage.
While religion plays only a marginal role in the poems, its overall importance in the village is stressed in “Mrs. Charles Bliss” where the reverend’s opinion is equal to the local judge’s, showing that they live as much by the church’s law as they do by the state’s. Stating that heaven and church have different rules implies that the church in itself is an earthly construct as well and has no influence on heaven.
The second part of the quote does not specify that the love in heaven is only shared by two people or necessarily has a romantic inclination. Especially the tragic characters of Minerva Jones, Sarah Brown, Herbert Marshall and Mrs. Charles Bliss, who all yearn for a different kind of love (or any love at all) than they are able to receive on earth will be able to find happiness in the non-restrictive love in heaven.
“This is life’s sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not.”
Unhappy relationships are a major theme in the anthology.
In this quote the speaker makes the claim that being in an unhappy relationship is a fact of life. And indeed this seems to be the case for most characters, certainly all of the poems’ protagonists.
The speaker maintains, however, that happiness cannot be achieved on one’s own. Therefore one has to keep trying, but the effort will always end up being futile as no two people who love each other in an equal manner will ever be attracted to one another. The speaker, who is in the position of being loved more than he loves back himself, portrays his situation as just as miserable as loving unrequited, showing that neither side can find happiness in this arrangement.
However, there is an implied remedy to this alleged reality: Unhappy relationships are “life’s sorrow” (l. 11), thus only applying to one’s lifetime, but not to the afterlife, which is a frequent part of most of the poems as well. And indeed, those characters who have unsuccessfully yearned for love in life (most notably Sarah Brown) find their peace in death.
“So we stuck to the end of the path.”
In this quote, the speaker is describing the decision she and her husband made not to divorce, even though both were unhappy in their marriage. This decision was based on the alleged benefit staying together would have on their children.
This quote does not make clear whether they postponed a divorce until the children had grown up or gave up on it all together. In the first scenario, the path would be their children’s childhood, ending in them reaching adulthood. In the second one scenario, the path is life and its end death. Given that the general theme of the anthology is village inhabitants reflecting on their lives after death, the second scenario seems the most likely.
In this case, life appears to be an unpleasant, yet inescapable passage one has to walk in order to reach a happy destination, afterlife. Being trapped in an unhappy relationship, as has been explored before, is another inevitable part of life.
