Freedom of Death
With death comes freedom. In the afterlife, there is liberty from the constraints that keep people from being honest while they live. It would be impossible to replicate Spoon River Anthology exactly by having their stories be told while living. Even diaries and journals are subject to the protective veneer of self-censorship. After all, journals get lost and diaries get broken into. Nothing life lends the utter freedom from consequences that death can provide those broken chains of bondage enjoyed by the dearly departed in Spoon River is precisely the mechanism that allows all the sordid secrets to finally be told.
Revolt from the Village
Although Masters himself would later deny any intent, Spoon River Anthology is invariably placed among a series of works from the same era which criticized the prevailing concept of small town life as idyllic and free from the corruption of the city. This seems an appropriate categorization of the collection of verse since so much of the poetry is a revelation of dark secrets and scandals which had lay buried from the public consciousness of the town. At the same time, however, the portrait of the town of Spoon River indicates no malice toward small town life as being inherently worse or more prone to keeping such secrets than their urban cousins.
Regret and Guilt
It seems that no one is destined to die without regret. Some have greater regrets than others and many are capable of feeling regret for sinful actions without necessarily having any accompanying guilt. One important revelation that comes through with each successive monologue is that regret is not exactly the same thing as guilt. Those overcome with feelings of regret are restless spirits in the afterlife while those for whom guilt drives their emotional narrative are better characterized as haunted spirits struggling desperately to find peace in the face of an eternal guilty conscience.
