Cooney+Potter

" Cooney Potter" Read By: Daniel Phllips Photo by:Melepix "Single Handed" media type="custom" key="11173024"

 Cooney Potter died in his sixtieth year from working his family down to the bone. Some people in Spoon River say, he deserved to die because of his unhealthy habits Others say he deserved to die because of how he treated his family. Although he is not respected by anyone on “The Hill” Cooney Potter portrayed himself as no non-sense type of guy in the poem “Cooney Potter” by Edgar Lee Masters. Cooney Potter is a very harsh man and not looked at in respected because of the way he forced his family to work for him and plow trees until he had 2000 acres of land. He is not respected among the hill because he is industrious, greedy, and anti-social.

 Cooney Potter is industrious because he worked hard and smoothly enough to go from forty acres to 1000 acres. He had a wife, two sons, and two daughters and he worked them all day to plow land and dawn to dusk in harvest time. “And by working my wife, my two sons, and two daughters / from dawn to dusk I acquired 1000 acres” (Line 2-4). This line shows that he was industrious because he would not stop. He was just industrious for the land. He really did not have a reason to want the land because in the poem he said, “A thousand acres. But no content” (Line 4). He did not really have a goal which would make you think he is industrious and greedy. For example, when Shell Gas Company builds a gas station on the other side of the freeway with no competitors and a Valero opens up across the Intersection they would usually go and build another Shell Station to shut down the Valero. So basically they are just being Industrious but depends on who you ask you will be looked at as greedy.

On the other hand there is a way to be too industrious to where you become greedy. By having all that land I would think he would put it too good use. He was not putting a house on that land or putting crops on the land. He just wanted it so other people cannot have it. The way you take the last piece of fruit even though you do not want it but you just do not want anyone else to have it. He was taking more than he could chew. He died fairly young but, because he was “ smoking Red Eagle Cigars. / Eating hot pie and gulping coffee,” he might have added an extra 20 years onto his life span or he just died from bad karma. The fact that he was drinking coffee and smoking Red Eagle Cigars is not what he supposed to be doing while his family was harvesting the little land they did plant on. He might have died from old age... or he might have killed himself.

 Lastly Cooney Potters is anti-social because he spent so much time farming and smoking Red Eagle Cigars to the point where he had no friends. “ I bustled through the years with axe and plow” (Line 6). He was a hard worker but in the poem it did not say anything about any friends or close relatives. So many I think he was an outsider because he was just spending all of his time outside and farming. He might have also tried to have friends but kept getting rejected because of the way he treated his family. Like if you cannot treat your family with respect why should someone else respect him and become his friend. He was a very anti-social person due to the lack of him getting out of the woods and stop plowing for land. Industrious, greedy, and anti-social are just a few of the train I interperted from the poem. He will forever have no respect until he fixes his problems.

> New York: MacMillian, 1946. 60
 * Masters, Edgar Lee. //"//Cooney Potter.//" The Spoon River Anthology"//.